Ri Thae Il
Korea University in Japan

Received December 30, 2021; Revised version received January 30, 2022; Accepted February 10, 2022

Abstract

The Act on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Overseas Koreans was adopted as Decree No. 15 of the Ordinance of the Supreme People’s Congress (SPC). This Act is an important sector law that embodies the regulations for the protection of overseas North Korean rights stipulated in Article 15 of the Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which states that: “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea advocates democratic ethno-national rights as well as legal rights and interests recognized by international law for the overseas Koreans.” The Act, consisting of 54 articles divided into five chapters, comprehensively regulates the overseas North Koreans’ rights protection project, including the basic principles of the law as well as social politics, culture, and economic rights of overseas North Koreans, in addition to guidance control and penalties for overseas North Koreans’ businesses. As stipulated in Article 1, the purpose of the Act is to implement the ideas and policies of the Workers’ Party of Korea focusing on overseas North Koreans to ensure the democratic national rights and interests of the compatriots and to actively promote the unification and prosperity of their homeland. The adoption of this Act at the SPC is a significant step toward the full development and expansion of overseas North Koreans via the intensification of the overseas North Koreans’ ethno-national pride and patriotic fervor and meaningful as a powerful legal security for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to develop its business with overseas Koreans. Moreover, from the perspective of the movement of the Koreans in Japan, the adoption of said Act serves as a significant leap forward in terms of a legal security for an expansion in all parameters of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, the movement of the Koreans in Japan, and the motherland. With the enactment of this Act, overseas North Koreans have garnered the legal security in which their rights and interests are firmly defended well into the unforeseeable future under the protection of the Republic. The enactment of this law is a Republic’s preferential measure corresponding to the full development of the movement of the Koreans in Japan, a significant event in the history of the movement of the Koreans in Japan and a solid legal security premise to progress the struggle for the protection of compatriots’ rights under the strong protection of the motherland. In fact, there are numerous North Koreans all over the world, and the laws related to overseas Koreans are a reflection of the philosophy and policies related to overseas Koreans under that country. This Act is the implementation of ideas regarding overseas North Koreans and related policies founded on the Juche ideology, the leading ideology of the Republic. Based on the understanding of the history and status of the Republic’s overseas Korean policy, this article describes the political and practical significance of the Overseas Korean Rights Protection Act at the historical stage of revival of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, and proposes tasks and methods to demonstrate the effectiveness and living power of the law.

Key Words : the DPRK’s policy toward overseas Koreans, Juche ideology, Act on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Overseas Koreans, sociopolitical rights and interests, cultural rights and interests, economic rights and interests