Human Wrongs Lawyer

Nice to know that Roh’s previous life experiences are still useful to him on occasion.

Before he left for the United States, Mr. Roh reiterated his position on human rights abuses in North Korea. Calling such rights a universal value, he added, “Still, I don’t think there is an agreed universal principle yet in international society as to whether a country can take certain measures against another country because of the details of human rights.”

He added, “South Korea has a special attitude toward North Korea because of our particular relationship as one people and one nation.”

Why, heck no. When we ink the FTA, in fact, every J.C. Penney will be required to stock its shelves with lamp shades made from “impure” infants and gulag inmates with interesting tattoos, who presumably don’t qualify for these special “ein volk, ein reich” immunities. For the love of God — has Roh’s vaunted human rights scholarship never brought him into contact with the “agreed universal principles” known as “freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining,” or how they are reflected in the Tariff Act of 1930? Surely Roh is aware of the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the U.N. Convention on Refugees, neither of which Roh has ever invoked to save the lives of Korean citizens unlucky enough to have been born north of the DMZ. Ordinarily, a human rights lawyer would know about such things, but a partisan hack who had merely clothed himself in liberal martyrdom to serve the world’s most illiberal master might not.

Harder yet is the reconciliation of Roh’s newfound relativism with his opportunistic dredging up of ancient grievances with Japan. Who remembers April 2005, when the mostly worthless U.N. Human Rights Commission voted to condemn North Korea’s ghastly treatment of its own people? South Korea abstained, as it had before and since, most recently before the General Assembly. Yet at the same time, South Korea tried to distract the Commission’s attention with its gripes about Japanese history textbooks. And of course, everyone knows that Roh and his coterie are authorities on historical accuracy, and that Korea’s history textbooks are an unimpeachable record.