On the Korean Peninsula

It's not like Yoon has a choice:

South Korea is pouring resources into its strategy of deterring any North Korean nuclear attack by preparing for preemptive strikes if necessary, a strategy some experts say may exacerbate their arms race and risks miscalculation during a conflict.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, has publicly given new emphasis to the so-called "Kill Chain" system to counter a North Korean nuclear attack.

First developed a decade ago as North Korea ramped up its nuclear development, Kill Chain calls for preemptive strikes against the North's missiles and possibly its senior leadership if an imminent attack is detected.

The system is a logical but highly risky and potentially unreliable way to try to counter North Korea's nuclear threat, some experts and former officials say.

Consider that under the Moon presidency, North Korea was much more bold. This was due to Moon's being pro-North Korea:

Especially on issues of human rights in North Korea, President Yoon and his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, have stark differences in their approaches. During the previous Moon administration, Seoul turned a blind eye to North Korea’s human rights violations for the sake of appeasing the Kim Jong-eun regime and abstained from voting on UN resolutions about its human rights violations.

In 2020, the Moon government even passed a law banning the practice of sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea. Moon’s policy tailored mostly to inter-Korean rapprochement invariably negatively affected Washington-Seoul relations. The Korean government seemed more favorable to Pyongyang’s interests rather than those of Washington regarding core democratic values and human rights.

Unlike his predecessor, President Yoon gives more attention the human rights concerns and strives to play a positive role in the human rights of North Korea. His administration’s high priority on human rights is well reflected in its determination to find the truth of the circumstances concerning the 2019 repatriation case of two North Korean escapees who committed felonies.

In November of 2019, the Moon government forcibly repatriated the two North Korean fishermen who had sailed in a small squid fishing boat to South Korean waters. They were known to have expressed their intention to defect to South Korea but were forced back across the border at the Panmunjom truce village to North Korea against their will five days later. The pictures capturing the repatriation process, released last week, showed they struggled desperately to resist being handed over to the North Korean authorities as they were dragged and pushed to the North Korean side of the border.

The way in which the repatriation was handled by the South Korean authorities seems to have been atrocious. In the beginning, they attempted to cover up the repatriation process, but South Korean press discovered it. On top of that, they seem to have hastily claimed or concluded that the North Korean escapees had committed aggravated felonies. Conducting a brief investigation on factual circumstances for three days was qualified neither for due process of law nor for the rule of law. The criminal matter should have been litigated in South Korea in accordance with its investigatory procedures and legal system, even though the evidence and witnesses were in North Korea. In hindsight, the case should have been treated openly in a transparent manner, and the information should have become public.

In theory, under the South Korean Constitution, the North Korean fishermen involved were considered South Korean citizens once they crossed the inter-Korean border. Yoon’s presidential office has criticized the repatriation as a potential “crime against humanity” in violation of the South Korean Constitution and applicable international human rights laws.

A U.S. congressman, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), says that the repatriation underscores the “brutality of North Korea’s communist regime and the callous complicity of the previous Moon administration.” In this regard, David Alton, a member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, wrote a letter asking President Yoon to investigate the repatriation case to assess who ordered the swift return of two fishermen.

Under international law, people seeking freedom should not be subject to forced returns to North Korea, regardless of whether the fishermen are deemed to have committed a “particularly serious crime.” The applicable law to the case is the Convention Against Torture and Other Crimes, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1984 (CAT). South Korea is a signatory to the CAT and ratified it in 1995. In particular, the Article 3 non-refoulement obligation of the CAT is linked historically with the prohibition on the return of refugees, contained in Articles 32 and 33 of the United Nations 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees (“the UN Convention”), and reflected in the withholding of removal provision under U.S. law. In addition to its conventional form, the principle of non-refoulement or non-return, a so-called jus cogens norm of customary international law, applies equally to the expulsion or return in circumstances in which there is a real risk of torture.