[뉴스] How North Korea’s lucrative trade in human hair is helping it skirt the impact of sanctions

They almost certainly don’t know it, but western owners of shiny new wigs and false eyelashes could owe their look to North Korean slave labour.

[뉴스] This article is more than 2 months old UK sends UN experts photographs of North Korean shipments to Russia

The UK has provided satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia to a panel of UN experts as part of an attempt to trigger an official investigation into arms deals in violation of international sanctions.

[정치/군사] Nuclear North Korea

...They refute a number of misconceptions and challenge the faulty thinking that surrounds the discussion of North Korea, particularly the idea that North Korea is an irrational actor. Cha and Kang look at the implications of a nuclear North Korea, assess recent and current approaches to sanctions and engagement, and provide a functional framework for constructive policy. With a new chapter on the way...

[학술논문] How Target-State Agency Shapes Geoeconomic Influence: Insights from Sino.North Korean Relations

...political priorities and calculated responses. North Korea’s sustained resistance has significantly weakened China’s policy influence, highlighting the decisive role of target-state agency in geoeconomic interactions. Hence, consistent with relevant UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions, the international community should explore more flexible pathways for economic engagement with North Korea.

[학술논문] Economic Experimentation under Authoritarian Closure: Urban and Social Transformation in North Korea’s Rason SEZ

... data and highlight concrete spatial changes. Methodologically, this study demonstrates the potential of mixed approaches for researching highly closed regions, and substantively, it also contributes to strategic debates on North Korea’s SEZs, investment potential, and the effectiveness of international sanctions.

[학술논문] Economic Sanctions and Private Goods: Focusing on North Korea’s Trade and Finance Elite Coalition

This study examines how North Korea’s ruling coalition has been restructured over the course of prolonged international sanctions. Moving beyond macro-level analyses of sanctions, it focuses on internal changes within the elite coalition that sustains the regime, drawing on selectorate theory. Using role descriptions of North Korean individuals appearing in UN Security Council Panel of Experts reports...

[학술논문] Why Has Inter-Korean Climate Cooperation Failed?

This study examines why inter-Korean climate cooperation has failed to become in-stitutionalized despite the shared threat of climate change. The analysis identifies both endogenous and exogenous constraints that have collectively hindered sustained coop-eration on the Korean Peninsula. Externally, international sanctions and the U.S.-China strategic rivalry have restricted the scope for joint engagement...

[학술논문] Responding to North Korean Provocations: Limitations of Sanctions

...for the target in terms of wealth, power, or political stability and survival. With respect to the sanctions imposed after the sinking of the Cheonan naval ship, only the United States and South Korea took action and it was fairly limited. Even if the sanctions were only intended to punish the North and to send a signal that such behavior would carry a price, the shelling of Yeonpyeong island in November...

[해외] How North Korea Won: The Strange Triumph of Kim Jong Un

...tough for most countries, but it seemed especially portentous for North Korea, which was largely food-insecure, home to a notoriously dilapidated public health-care system, and struggling with a battered economy. Kim himself was humiliated and isolated, both domestically and internationally, after failing to deliver much-needed sanctions relief in some heady high-profile summitry with the leaders of...

[해외] North Korea as It Is: The Case for a Cold Peace

...inventory. And the United States has relied on economic sanctions to bring North Korea to the negotiating table and to pressure it to comply with nonproliferation agreements. The size and sophistication of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal today shows that these approaches have failed. In addition to inconsistent U.S. policy and a lack of attention to North Korea amid perennial crises elsewhere in the world...

[국내] KDI 북한경제리뷰 2025년 11월

...approach to engagement. It also reviews current debates on economic involvement with the North and evaluates the Lee Jae Myung administration’s tension-management strategy, observing that Pyongyang’s “two-state” declaration, its tightening alignment with Russia, and the persistence of international sanctions sharply limit near-term prospects. In this environment, policy efforts are expected to center...

[국내] The Denuclearization of North Korea and the US-China rivalry

...criticized the United States for failing to implement corresponding measures such as a partial lift of sanctions from the American side. There is a growing expectation that early next year, there will be a second breakthrough summit between North Korea and the United States, but the nature of the North Korean nuclear problem is changing against the background of the Northeast Asian international situation...

[국내] What Trump Should Know After the Panmunjom Summit

...Hanoi, Trump made big demands for denuclearization while Chairman Kim focused on lifting economic sanctions and insisted on pursuing his preferred step-by-step approach to denuclearization, simultaneously and in parallel. After the failure of the Hanoi talks, a pessimistic outlook for the US-North Korean nuclear negotiations prevailed, but new expectations have begun to emerge following the Panmunjom...