A broader view of human rights

Kang Kyung-wha. By Lee Chan-won

Kang Kyung-wha, 52, the highest-ranking South Korean woman working at the United Nations, made a short trip to her homeland from Geneva, Switzerland last week in the midst of her hectic schedule as the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights.
She delivered a speech on the partnership between the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, at last week’s seventh Disabled Peoples’ International World Assembly held in Ilsan, Gyeonggi, which celebrated the adoption last year of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The convention had special personal meaning for Kang. She participated in the drafting process as a South Korean government delegate and had been instrumental in the insertion of a separate article on women with disabilities in the text.
Kang served as a university professor, an aide to four speakers of the National Assembly, an interpreter to President Kim Dae-jung, chairperson of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and director general for international organizations at South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.
Kang agreed to a brief interview with the JoongAng Daily on Sept. 6.

Q. Recently, UN committees on the elimination of racial discrimination and discrimination against women recommended that South Korea make improvements. Does South Korea have significant human rights problems?
A. All countries have challenges.
No country is perfect as far as matching their international human rights obligations. Korea, in many ways, has made tremendous progress and is a model country in terms of really pushing through legislations with far-reaching human rights implications. But there is room for more to be done.

Do you think these recommendations can really make a difference?
They make a difference if governments take them up and act upon them; they don’t make any difference if nothing is done.
Certainly the spirit of becoming a party to the conventions and providing your reports is precisely to look at the situation with the experts and to identify where the gaps still lie and what actions can be taken.

What improvements does South Korea need to make in terms of interracial marriages, foreigners and migrant workers?
I think a lot can be done. But I also think the mood has really swung in a positive direction. There is a heightened awareness of the problems and a clear understanding of where the [right] direction lies. I am encouraged by the recent survey conducted by the Gender Equality Ministry, which indicates that the people’s perceptions about cross-cultural, interracial marriages have significantly changed.

What is the biggest human rights issue these days for the United Nations?
Under the leadership of the high commissioner, Louise Arbour, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ohchr) is highlighting poverty as a key human rights issue. Poverty is not just a lack of things to eat, lack of economic means, but the lack of access to justice, to channels where your voice can be heard. Poverty exacerbates the situation where the poor are unable to exercise their rights, and the lack of the ability to exercise those human rights then exacerbates the poverty. So we see poverty not just as a simple economic issue but as a serious human rights challenge, and any measure to alleviate poverty must mainstream human rights concerns.
We also emphasize the need to fight impunity, whereby serious human rights violations go unaccounted for and unpunished. In many corners of the world, serious human rights violations are going unaddressed because of the lack of will or a lack of capacity, or both. Where serious human rights violations are not prosecuted, investigated and punished, it is difficult to nurture the culture of protecting and promoting human rights.

Do you think the UN should have intervened in efforts for the release of Korean hostages held by the Taliban?
The idea of negotiating with terrorist kidnappers is unacceptable for many in the international community. But I also understand that the Korean government had to put a priority on the lives of the hostages. I think the UN can be an interlocutor and facilitator of dialogue. But there are times when you can do this publicly and there are times when it is more appropriate, more effective, to do it quietly, behind the scenes.

A resolution on human rights violations by North Korea was passed at the end of last year. What are the prospects of that issue?
The situation of human rights in North Korea is an ongoing concern of the international community. The Ohchr is called upon to engage the North Korean authorities on human rights issues. So far, they have been unresponsive to our attempts at dialogue. The issue will continue to be on the global agenda unless there is significant improvement.

Why was a special article about women with disabilities inserted in the convention?
We felt that women with disabilities deserved special mention. The cross-section of gender and disability is not just twice the difficulty and discrimination for women. The intersecton creates a situation for women with disabilities which is qualitatively different from the experience of other persons with disabilities. So in the next round of the text review, we, the delegation of the Republic of Korea, in close consultation with our NGO partners, proposed the insertion of a separate article on women with disabilities. There was great resistance, as this went against the principle of universality, i.e. that the convention should apply equally to all persons with disabilities. But we felt strongly that the plight of women with disabilities could only be effectively addressed with a separate article, in addition to references to gender in other articles. In the end we were able to convince the other key players.

If South Korea ratifies the convention, does the government have to revise its current laws?
I understand that the newly passed anti-discrimination law doesn’t fully address the concerns of the disability groups here. As with most countries that have signed the convention, there will have to be much work to bring domestic standards fully in line with the requirements of the convention.

by Kim Soe-jung [soejung@joongang.co.kr]