Foreign Affairs – Law Street https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com Law and Policy for Our Generation Wed, 13 Nov 2019 21:46:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 100397344 In North Korea, Due Process is Virtually Nonexistent https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/north-korea-rule-law-stands-flimsy-grounds/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/north-korea-rule-law-stands-flimsy-grounds/#respond Tue, 03 May 2016 19:25:33 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=52243

An American businessman is the latest foreigner to be sentenced in the communist country.

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"For the leader" courtesy of [Gilad Rom via Flickr]

Three foreigners have recently been sentenced to years of imprisonment and hard labor in North Korea. An American businessman for 10 years for stealing state secrets on behalf of South Korea. A Canadian pastor, reading off a script, confessed to trying to “set up a base for a religious state” on behalf of South Korea. He was dealt a life sentence. And an American college student said he was offered a used car from a friend in America in exchange for a North Korean propaganda poster, which he stole from the 5th floor of the hotel he was staying at in Pyongyang. He was handed a sentence of 15 years.

The latest in a string of sentences by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) came last week when Kim Dong Chul–the businessman–was found guilty of “espionage” and “subversion.” Barring an early release, Kim will spend the next 10 years of his life working as a hard laborer for Kim Jung Un’s communist government. With the sentencing, he joins Otto Warmbier, the 21 year old American college student who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March, and Hyeon Soo Lim, the Canadian priest who was sentenced to life of hard labor in December, as the only three westerners still detained by the notoriously insular and secretive nation.

During an interview with CNN in Pyongyang–North Korea’s capital–in January, Kim admitted to two year’s of spying for “South Korean conservative elements.” Kim, a naturalized American citizen who had been living in the Chinese border town of Yanji since 2001, gave CNN’s Will Ripley a rather detailed narrative of his activities as a spy, including mention of a former North Korean soldier who acted as a source and an explanation of how the North Koreans tracked his activities.

“I was tasked with taking photos of military secrets and ‘scandalous’ scenes,” Kim, 62, said. “[South Korea] asked me to help destroy the [North Korean] system and spread propaganda against the government.”

Though Kim’s account is unusually detailed, his claims are impossible to corroborate, and the North Korean justice system does not adhere to due process. The 68-year-old state is cited by Human Rights Watch as being among the “most repressive in the world.”

Kim’s case is the most recent in a spate of detentions under Kim Jung Un, who took power after his father died of a heart attack in 2011. And while sentencing foreigners as a means of gaining leverage over the West is hardly a novel tactic used by Kim Jung Un, the process by which the detentions have been doled out–in court, under the guise of law–is unusual.

“It seems that they are trying to emphasize and justify their holding of these individuals under grounds that [the accused] violated DPRK laws,” Scott Snyder, Director of U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a phone interview with Law Street. “It also has to do with their desire to uphold the validity of their own system somehow in the eyes of their own citizens.”

Traditionally, foreigners detained by the DPRK remained in limbo until a diplomat from their home country reached out to make amends and bring the detainee home, Snyder said. Kim Jung Un has altered things by bringing cases to court, delivering a concrete judgment, and waiting months, sometimes years, before negotiating a return with government officials from the detainee’s home country. Under Kim Jung Un’s rule, four Americans have been sentenced and later released prior to their official release date.

According to Snyder, it’s common for the DPRK court to sentence a defendant based solely on a confession. He said that as early as the 1960s, foreigners accused of “sins against the state” would be required to write self-evaluations, often under intense pressure from communist party officials. Those evaluations, coupled with a show of contrition, or remorse for actions deemed unlawful, would be enough evidence for a conviction.

“It’s pretty clear in this socialist system, once [a detainee] gets to a hearing a sentence has already been determined,” Snyder said. “It’s a puppet court, and there’s no pretense of an actual evaluation of right and wrong.”

And while diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea are effectively nonexistent, communication at the moment is especially frosty, given recent military posturing by the DPRK that breached international law. The Swedish Embassy acts as the U.S. point of contact in North Korea, passing along messages from both sides, and acting as “proxy eyes and ears,” according to Snyder.

However, there’s only so much that foreign diplomats can do in the hermit kingdom; where international law is routinely flouted and the supreme leader–Kim Jung Un–has unequivocal power.

And though Snyder recognizes the unjust consequences for crimes committed in North Korea, he thinks those traveling there must be conscious that they’re heading to a place where the rule of law is just another prop in the country’s facade.

“Obey the North Korean rule or you’re putting yourself at risk,” he said. “North Korea has its own laws.”

Alec Siegel
Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Russia’s Aggressive Foreign Policy https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/issues/world/russias-aggressive-foreign-policy/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/issues/world/russias-aggressive-foreign-policy/#respond Sat, 07 Mar 2015 15:00:45 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=35570

Putin's aggressive foreign policy is making a splash. Will it work?

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Image courtesy of [Jennifer Boyer via Flickr]

Winston Churchill famously said that “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” While the quote may be well worn, it is still surprisingly appropriate when discussing Russia today. Just a few years ago, old Cold War rivals Russia and the United States seemed to finally bond over their shared struggles against terrorism and to be on the path to real cooperation. But then, Russia changed course. Instead of trying to ingratiate itself into the international community, Russia took some steps that can be labeled as aggressive. Aside from a long-brewing conflict with Chechnya, it fought a war against the Republic of Georgia and is now slowly devouring Ukrainian territory. Those moves left many wondering: why did Russia feel the need to make such a drastic change in its global political relations. Read on to learn about Russia’s origins, historical political relationships, and foreign policy.


Russian History

Rise and Imperial History

While the area today known as Russia had been populated by steppe nomads for thousands of years, eastern European Slavs moved into the area only about 3,500 years ago. The Vikings also sailed into modern day Russia and founded the city of Kiev in the late ninth century. Early Russians adopted many of the practices of the Byzantine Empire, including the Orthodox religion. Following the fall of Constantinople, Russian leaders declared Moscow as its successor. Russia’s leaders adopted the title of tsar, similar to that of Caesar.

Russia continued to grow, but this growth was nearly undone when the Mongols conquered Russia in the thirteenth century, burning Kiev and sacking Moscow along the way. The Mongols then held sway over Russia for the next 200 years until the end of the fifteenth century when Russian rulers finally were strong enough to throw off the Mongol yoke.

Following this emancipation, the new rulers of Russia–the Romanovs–continued expanding, reaching the shores of the Pacific in 1649. Russia also attempted to gain further footholds in Europe, mainly by acquiring seaports in the Baltic to the north and Mediterranean to the south. As it did so, Russia came into greater contact with Europe and participated in a number of wars, including the defeat of Napoleon. Contact with Europe also forced Russia to confront its many backward policies. In the early twentieth century, reactionaries inspired by communism began to gain traction. During World War I, the Romanov family was overthrown and the Soviet Union was established.

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was the successor to Romanov rule in Russia, but not without a fight. It was established after the victory of the Bolshevik Red Army in the Russian Civil War. Following their ascent to power, the Soviets enacted a series of purges and five-year plans that left the country weak and starving heading into WWII. The Soviets initially allied with the Nazis in exchange for several eastern European countries and a partition of Poland; however, the truce was broken in 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the Soviets were able to withstand the attack, push back the Nazis, and establish themselves as one of two superpowers along with the United States after the war ended.

Following the war, the USSR and U.S. engaged in a protracted Cold War. Both sides competed against the other in arms and space races. While they never engaged directly in wars, several times during this period their proxies faced off against one another. Following the Cuban Missile crisis, cooler heads began to prevail, the rhetoric surrounding nuclear war was reduced, and several arms control treaties were signed. Beginning in the 1980s, the USSR started to liberalize as its economy and empire began to crumble. Finally, in 1991 the USSR dissolved into a number of independent countries with Russia as its leading member.

Post-USSR

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was in disarray. Struggling to deal with the shift from communism to free market capitalism, inflation soared. The Russian economy, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, was barely able to avoid total collapse and reached the point of needing to import food to stave off starvation. Following the resignation of Yeltsin and the rise of Putin, the country began to stabilize and the course of foreign policy began to take its present shape. The following video gives a brief summary of modern Russian history.


Current Foreign Policy

Russia’s current foreign policy can be summed up in one word: aggressive. The reason for this shift toward conquest, oppression, and authoritarianism can be linked to two things. First is the desire of many Russians to return to the prestige of the Soviet Union. Second is the man leading that change and the nation itself, Vladimir Putin.  The video below looks at Russia’s current foreign policy.

Vladmir Putin

The man who holds responsibility for many of Russia’s decisions since the fall of the USSR is its longtime leader, President Vladimir Putin. Putin was born in Stalingrad during the height of the Soviet Union’s glory; however, he was coming of age professionally just as the empire was disintegrating.   Even after the USSR collapsed around him, Putin was determined to restore Russia to its status as a global power. Below is an excerpt from a speech Putin gave when he was a candidate for Prime Minister in 1999:

Russia has been a great power for centuries, and remains so. It has always had and still has legitimate zones of interest abroad in both the former Soviet lands and elsewhere. We should not drop our guard in this respect, neither should we allow our opinion to be ignored.

Since Putin was elected prime minister and subsequently president following Yeltsin’s resignation, he has done everything in his power to live up to these words. His first order of business was finally crushing the independent state of Chechnya. Chechnya, a small area in the southwest Caucasus region of Russia, had actually defeated the Russian army in the 1990s and formed a short-lived nation of its own.

After reestablishing Russia’s military strength, Putin also moved to curb the power of the oligarchs who became fabulously wealthy when they took control of state-owned industries following the fall of the USSR. He arrested and silenced critics, such as the fallen oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This policy has only continued as Putin’s strangle-hold on power has intensified. Along with leading the country since his ascent in 2000 as either president or prime minister, he has also engaged in further military actions including dispatching soldiers to crush Georgian troops and annexing Crimea. Recently Russian troops have also been implicated in separatists’ movements in Eastern Ukraine as well. The video below discusses Putin’s life.

Foray into Ukraine

While outsiders may view Russia’s recent foreign expansion into Ukrainian affairs as aggressive, the majority of its citizens hold the opposite opinion for several reasons. First, to many Russians, Ukraine is part of their historical empire and thus it is only natural that it be restored to Russia.

The conflict in Ukraine started when Russian-backed Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych was ousted following his unpopular decision to remain aligned with Russia instead of integrating with the European Union. In response, Russian troops invaded an area called Crimea, occupied the area, and Crimea eventually voted in a referendum to become part of Russia. After the annexation of Crimea, Russia has continued supporting ethnic Russian Separatists in Eastern Ukraine, where they are the majority. This has aroused great controversy because despite several ceasefires, Russia has continued to provide separatists with weapons and possibly soldiers.

Many Russians also believe the entire uprising in Ukraine is the result of Western actions. A common argument is that Russia has actually intervened to protect Russian speakers the same as many western countries do for other minority groups. However, the opinions of everyday Russians are heavily influenced by the Russian media, which is indiscriminately run by the state and thus broadcasts the state’s message.

Russia’s next course of action remains up in the air. Economically it would seem obvious that Russia has to stop being so aggressive and work toward appeasing its Western creditors and consumers. Economic sanctions placed on Russia following its actions in Ukraine are beginning to be felt. The main effects of the sanctions have been in denying Russia credit and access to markets. Nonetheless, as yet another breached ceasefire implies, Russia doesn’t seem content to return Eastern Ukraine–and certainly not Crimea–back to the original status quo.

Other Foreign Policy Concerns for Russia 

Along with sanctions, an even greater problem for Russia suggests it should curtail its recent aggressive maneuvering–falling oil prices. At the beginning of the year, the price of oil dropped below $50 a barrel. This is devastating to a Russian economy that is dependent on oil as its main export.

From an economic standpoint this has been disastrous to the ruble, which has dropped by 17.5 percent compared to the dollar in just the first two weeks of 2015. The economy in general is hurting, as well, as it’s projected to retract by three to five percent this year. What this means for people on the street is also troubling. Lower crude prices mean higher prices for other goods, in particular food stuffs.

All of these economic woes have negatively impacted another grand Putin endeavor, the Eurasian Union. As the name implies, it is an economic union made up of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan that is supposed to rival the EU. However, with falling prices in Russia and declining currencies at home, all of the members are already discovering the side effects of allying with a troubled Russia. The member countries are also wary of sovereignty violations by Russia as well, similar to the ones that have already occurred in Georgia, Crimea, and now Eastern Ukraine.

It seems unlikely that Russia will stop pursuing such an aggressive approach, however. As a de facto dictator, it is crucial for Putin that he keeps his people happy enough so that they will not revolt. In this regard Putin seems to have been very successful. In December 2014 he was elected Russia’s Man of the Year for the fifteenth time in a row. Putin’s popularity level in fact has hovered at around 70 percent his entire time in office, spiking even higher during the invasion of Georgia and following the annexation of Crimea. It actually seems to Putin’s benefit to maintain his strong appearance in the face of alleged western aggression. While people in the West may question the authenticity of these ratings, any western politician would love to have the same kind of popularity.

Putin has also increased spending on the military. Even with the economy in crisis, military spending actually increased for this year rising to $50 billion. The effect of this spending has been evident in increased navy patrols, air maneuvers, improved equipment and greater activity. It also included the purchase of dozens of new state-of-the-art nuclear weapons to replace obsolete models from the Cold War.

So, Russia’s policies are working, at least in part. While they have proven very costly to the average Russian and the economy overall, it has not dissuaded Putin from his desire to restore Russian prestige. Frankly it should not be surprising either, with his high approval ratings and the West’s resistance to anything more than soft power tactics. The real question going forward is how much further Russia will go down this path. Will it stop with Eastern Ukraine or go further and risk overstretching? At some point the West will likely draw a line in the sand and if Russia crosses it, what will be next for Russia and the international community it refuses to abide by?


Resources

BBC News: Vladimir Putin

History World: History of Russia

The New York Times: Why Russians Back Putin on Ukraine

Business Insider: How Do We Know Russia Economic Crisis Has Officially Arrived?

Foreign Policy: Putin’s Eurasian Dream is Over Before it Began

Atlantic: Putin’s Popularity Much Stronger Than the Ruble

PBS: What Has Been the Effect of Western Sanctions on Russia?

U.S. News & World Report: Putin Defends Actions in Ukraine.

Michael Sliwinski
Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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