This joint Asia Society-U.S. Institute of Peace event, which took place in New York, explored how financial sanctions and/or engagement could change North Korean behavior. Admission fee is required.

*Attendance fee is required: $7 for Asia Society members, students, and seniors. $11 for nonmembers.

Passed in response to North Korea's second nuclear test on May 25, 2009, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874 has been implemented robustly in terms of its financial sanctions provisions. On the eve of its adoption, Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., stated, "This sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite, bite in a significant way."

This joint Asia Society-U.S. Institute of Peace event explored how financial sanctions -- an important policy tool for the Obama administration thus far -- and/or an emerging engagement strategy could change North Korean behavior.

Daniel Glaser, deputy assistant for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, discussed the specific objectives of, and progress with, the implementation of the U.S.-led financial sanctions. John Park, senior research associate at the U.S. Institute of Peace, examined the potential impact of financial sanctions on North Korea. John Delury, project director of "North Korea Inside Out: The Case for Economic Engagement," a joint Asia Society-University of California Task Force, presented key findings of the task force's new  report.

Speakers

  • Daniel Glaser
    Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury
  • John Park
    Senior Research Associate & Director, Northeast Asia, U.S. Institute of Peace
  • John Delury
    Associate Director, Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations
  • Mike Kulma, Moderator
    Director of Policy Initiatives, Asia Society

Related Publications

Increasing Information Access for the North Korean People

Increasing Information Access for the North Korean People

Monday, April 15, 2024

By: Sokeel Park

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

By: Dan Leaf

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

By: Mark Tokola

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

By: Kee B. Park

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