Possibilities and Limitations of Human Rights Cooperation in East Asia: Focusing on the COVID-19 and the Myanmar Crisis (2022.10)
- Author : Hun Joon Kim
- Publication : Oughtopia
- Publisher : Kyung Hee Institute for Human Society
- Volume : 37(2)
- Date : November 2022
Abstract: Scholars have studied possibilities and limitations of cooperation in human rights issues. Students of East Asian human rights politics have discovered that findings from other regions cannot easily be applied to the region. First, East Asia is characterized by a lack of regional human rights institutions and organizations to coordinate during the time of human rights crises. Moreover, bilateral relations between Korea-Japan, China-Japan, and Taiwan-China all show that power politics dominate and the politics of memory is highly contentious. This article examines the possibilities and limitations of human rights cooperation in East Asia, focusing on the two recent human rights crises in the region: (1) the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on human rights and (2) the military coup and subsequent human rights violations in Myanmar. The two cases confirm that the findings from other regions do not fit to East Asia. However, both cases also show some important possibilities. First, the COVID-19 case shows that when faced with unprecedented global pandemic, human rights protection is possible when countries learn from and cooperate with each other. Second, the Myanmar case shows that not only governments but also civil societies are critical actors in promoting human rights in the region.