The Myth of the Self-Restraining State: Becoming Seonjinguk and the National Human Rights Commission of Korea
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2017-12
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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Why do states comply with international human rights laws and standards? Specifically, why do so many states create national human rights institutions (NHRIs) within their domestic spheres, when NHRIs are, in theory, designed to be watchdogs for the states’ wrongdoings? Although this state behavior seems paradoxical, the number of NHRIs has drastically increased in the last decades; as of 2017, there are 117 NHRIs in existence. The implementation of NHRI norms differs from state to state, and each state’s motivation for creating an NHRI is equally individual; therefore, the reasons behind each state’s creation of a self-limiting NHRI must be analyzed individually. Extant studies on NHRIs predominantly focus on identifying what contributed to the spread of NHRIs (e.g., pressure from inside or outside the country), attempting to identify the variables that caused the proliferation of NHRIs. This scholarship does not provide a full account of why states have come to realize it is in their interest to establish NHRIs and how it happened. In this dissertation, I examine the case of South Korea (herein called simply “Korea”) and the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK). I demonstrate that Korea established this institution, which presumably limits state power, as a (somewhat successful) means of gaining international legitimacy. Korea created and consolidated the NHRCK in an attempt to materialize its desired identity, that of a seonjinguk (advanced country). Korea therefore saw the establishment of the NHRCK as being in its national interest and as a ticket to join the seonjinguk nations. By tracing the rise and fall of the NHRCK over time (2001–2012), I bring back the forgotten agent—the state; I contend that the state controlled decisions about whether to comply with or disregard the global human rights norms represented by NHRIs, and that the decision to comply was a policy preference, pursued in service of its goal of becoming seonjinguk.
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Kukka Inkwŏn Wiwŏnhoe (Korea), National human rights institutions
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