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Hunger and Human Rights: The Politics of Famine in North Korea
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About the Report North Korea is well into its second decade of chronic food shortages. A famine in the 1990s killed as many as 1 million North Koreans or roughly 5 percent of the population. Millions more were left to contend with broken lives and personal misery. Particularly worrisome are the long-term effects-including irreversible ones-on the human development of infants and children. But North Korean claims that the famine was due primarily to natural disasters and external shocks are misleading in important respects. The decline in food production and the deterioration of the public distribution system (PDS) were visible years before the floods of 1995. Moreover, the government was culpably slow to take the necessary steps to guarantee adequate food supplies. With plausible policy adjustments-such as maintaining food imports on commercial terms or aggressively seeking multilateral assistance-the government could have avoided the famine and the shortages that continue to plague the country. This study has implications for four sets of actors: the North Korean government itself; the donor community working through the WFP; the two countries-China and South Korea-who extend aid bilaterally; and the non-governmental organizations engaged in the country. About the Authors Stephan Haggard is Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, where he serves as Director of the Korea-Pacific Program. From 2000 to 2001, he was Interim Dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. From 1997 to 1999, he was the Director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, the University of California's policy center for international affairs. In that capacity, he chaired the Northeast Asian Cooperation Dialogue, a track-two diplomatic exercise in Northeast Asia. His research and teaching interests center on the political economy of the Asia-Pacific and Latin America. He is the author of Pathways from the Periphery the Political Economy of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990) and The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions with Robert Kaufman (1995). His writings on the Asian financial crisis include: The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000); co-editor, Economic Crisis and Corporate Restructuring in Korea (2003); and on foreign direct investment in high-technology industries in the Asia-Pacific: From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Location and Competitive Advantage in the Disk Drive Industry with David McKendrick and Richard Doner (2000). Marcus Noland is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics. He was a Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President of the United States, and has held research or teaching positions at the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southern California, Tokyo University, Saitama University, the University of Ghana, the Korea Development Institute, and the East-West Center. He has received fellowships sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, and the Pohang Iron and Steel Corporation (POSCO). Dr. Noland is the author of Korea After Kim Jong-Il (2004); Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas (2000), which was awarded the prestigious Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize; and Pacific Basin Developing Countries: Prospects for the Future (1990). He is coauthor of Industrial Policy in an Era of Globalization with Howard Pack (2003); Global Economic Effects of the Asian Currency Devaluations (1998), Reconcilable Differences? United States-Japan Economic Conflict with C. Fred Bergsten (1993), and Japan in the World Economy with Bela Balassa (1988); coeditor of Pacific Dynamism and the International Economic System (1993); and editor of Economic Integration of the Korean Peninsula (1998). |
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