Introduction: Human Security Development and the Future of East Asia

For more than a decade, a group of North Koreans have languished in a legal gray zone: Despite being prima facie refugees, they have not been accorded refugee status in accordance with international law. These North Koreans, most famously personified by their daring escapades into foreign consulates in China, are not unknown to the authorities. But the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the governments of China, Russia, and the two Koreas have instead chosen to pursue a less politically messy agenda of sweeping it under the proverbial carpet. Despite the adoption of the human security agenda by the international community, these refugees who have fled North Korea to escape the widespread starvation and poverty brought about by large-scale famines since the 1990s seem to have fallen through the gaps. This chapter examines the efficacy, or the lack thereof, of the human security paradigm in the nexus between politics and refugees. Any attempt to resolve the matter can only begin with a re-conceptualization of the entire security paradigm, including the adoption of “sustainable security,” and to perceive human security as an ethos to pave way for a more constructive political culture of reconciliation instead of recrimination.