Case Study on North Korea

The symposium on North Korea will examine definitions of conflict in the context of a long-divided country and escalating tensions in the wake of North Korea’s nuclear weapons test. The symposium will bring together scholars, human rights advocates, program practitioners and personal Korean perspectives to discuss the conflict in and around North Korea and its impacts on public health.

About the Task Force

The goal of the USIP/JHSPH Task Force on Public Health and Conflict is to provide public health professionals and conflict mediators alike with a better understanding of the relationship between conflict and public health: how political context is critical to an understanding of complex humanitarian emergencies and how public health perspectives can offer insights for conflict analysis and resolution.

Task Force Events:

Armed Conflict as a Public Health Problem: Current Realities and Future Directions
April 20, 2007


Defining Conflict and Its Effects on Health: Case Study on Iraq
March 22, 2007


Negotiation and Conflict Resolution for Public Health Professionals
January 26, 2007


Defining Conflict and Its Effects on Health: Case Study on Afghanistan
February 8, 2007


Understanding Conflict and Its Relationship to Public Health: Case Study on North Korea
November 16, 2006

The Task Force on Public Health and Conflict is sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, including the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, the Hopkins Population Center, the J.B. Grant Society and the Health and Human Rights Group.

Through a series of events involving scholars, practitioners, and students, the Task Force is committed to raising the profile of conflict analysis and resolution in the field of public health education. In addition to the November 16th Symposium on North Korea, upcoming events are planned on Afghanistan, Iraq and conflict-related displacement.

Events

Through a series of encounters among scholars, practitioners, and students, the Task Force is taking steps toward raising the profile of conflict analysis and resolution in the field of public health education. The first of these encounters took place on November 16 and examined the case of North Korea. Additional symposia will cover Afghanistan and Iraq. This winter, USIP will run a conflict analysis and resolution workshop for public health professionals. In April, the Task Force hosts Dr. Chris Murray to speak on the peacebuilding effects of health.


Related Publications

Increasing Information Access for the North Korean People

Increasing Information Access for the North Korean People

Monday, April 15, 2024

In recent years, North Korea has become more repressive, more impoverished and more allergic to the outside world. Already turning inward after the failure of diplomatic efforts in 2019, the North Korean government isolated itself further amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. North Korea has learned to operate, and Kim Jong Un has learned to rule, with greater levels of self-isolation than aggressive international sanctions regimes could ever hope to impose. Given North Korea’s current mode of rejecting even humanitarian assistance and its recent turn toward Russia, the chances for diplomatic breakthroughs with Pyongyang look like a wishful long-term hope at best.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

It’s Time to Resolve the Korean War

It’s Time to Resolve the Korean War

Monday, April 1, 2024

The greatest challenge to peaceful coexistence between North Korea and the United States is the technical state of war between the two countries. The United States and the Soviet Union may have been at ideological loggerheads, used proxies in regional conflicts and come close to direct superpower blows — but they were not in a state of war. Resolution of the Korean War should be set as a stated U.S. policy objective. This is a necessary Step Zero on the road to peaceful coexistence with North Korea today and could reduce the risk of deliberate or accidental conflict, nuclear or otherwise.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Three Conditions for Successful Engagement with North Korea

Three Conditions for Successful Engagement with North Korea

Monday, March 25, 2024

The September 13, 2023, meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un in Russia’s Amur Oblast marked a significant crippling of the decades-long U.S. pressure-based approach toward North Korea. The strategy of isolating and pressuring North Korea through United Nations Security Council resolutions to compel its nuclear disarmament in exchange for providing normalized relations, economic aid and sanctions relief may or may not ever have been a winning strategy, but now is no longer viable. The strategy required cooperation among the United States, South Korea, China and Russia, but this now seems a distant prospect.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

Building Trust through Health Cooperation with North Korea

Building Trust through Health Cooperation with North Korea

Monday, March 18, 2024

The United States needs to address the existing trust deficit with North Korea if it wants to coexist peacefully with that country. Trust building through health cooperation may be the least contentious way politically and the most likely to succeed. However, engagement on health and humanitarian assistance with North Korea, like security negotiations, has been undermined by geopolitics.

Type: Analysis

Global Policy

View All Publications