Using Law to Prevent Further Unequal Access to Food in North Korea

This chapter aims to incorporate critical legal thinking in the right to food, and discuss how the current North Korean food legal framework is structured to solidify inequality and persist unequal access to food. It also specifically aims to question and answer how policies should be re-directed to ensure people in the country have sufficient access to food, regardless of where he or she lives. Today, a person’s access to food is determined by the location of his or her residence, and deeply rooted power structure determines the latter. In essence, geopolitical predicaments compromise the general legal food order and access to food in the country. This work requires revisiting existing regulations and proposing revisions to the laws and policies in the country. There are currently very few studies done on North Korea’s food regime, and a careful review of existing laws and policies will assist in understanding the country’s systematic deprivation of human rights more deeply. Various factors determine how much food a person has in North Korea—it is not merely about income levels or education backgrounds as in many other modern societies.