Legal Mobilization for Human Rights Protection in North Korea: Furthering Discourse or Discord?

International human rights networks have publicized the exigencies of human rights violations in North Korea and have mobilized international and domestic laws as part of their respective movements to pressure North Korea on human rights. This article asks how effective these attempts at legal mobilization have been. While leveraging law has found success in other parts of the world for human rights improvement, this article argues that legal mobilization has had very limited impact in North Korea due to larger political impediments such as denuclearization priorities, ideological polarization between human rights groups, and North Korea’s own counter-discourse to human rights.