By Yu Myung-hwan
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade

As the year draws to a close, those living in more advanced nations are busy exchanging greetings and purchasing gifts for their loved ones. However, a larger portion of the global community is deprived of such luxuries and still others are even subject to abject poverty or outright human rights abuse.

In light of this sad reality, the current administration has placed greater emphasis on making more contributions to the international community. Thus, a major foreign policy initiative of the government is the promotion of human rights and democracy throughout the world. Looking back on the year, we have made a number of notable achievements in this important area.

Underscoring human rights as a universal value, the Korean government exerted efforts to further strengthen our cooperation with other member states at this year's U.N. General Assembly. In particular, for the first time, we co-sponsored a resolution on the human rights situation in North Korea.

This resolution, adopted annually at the U.N. since 2003, is a concerted statement by the greater part of the international community that calls upon North Korea to improve its human rights conditions.

In addition, as a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Korea contributed to the council's work by actively participating in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which is a kind of ``peer review" on human rights situations of member states.

We took a careful look at the human rights situations of other countries, and for our part, extended full cooperation on the council's review of our own country as well. Our various efforts on the promotion of human rights were received with wide appreciation, and thus, led to our re-election to the council membership for the 2008-2011 term.

Along with our efforts to improve human rights conditions, Korea played a leading role in establishing a new multilateral cooperation mechanism devoted to the promotion of democracy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Since human rights and democracy are like the two sides of a same coin, the spread of democracy will undoubtedly improve human rights conditions. Korea's experience is a model example serving as an important background in our efforts to spread democracy to all corners of the world. For instance, we hosted the first senior officials' meeting of the Asia-Pacific Democracy Partnership (APDP) in Seoul last October. It proved to be highly fruitful, as it laid a solid foundation for this budding Partnership, especially in terms of setting its mandate and organization.

We will continue to play a significant role in the coming year through such activities as election observations and assisting election-related capacity building programs. Furthermore, at the Bali Democracy Forum held in Indonesia this month, we actively took part in the exchange of ideas to build and consolidate democracies.

I have high hopes that the APDP and other regional initiatives such as the Bali Forum will be most constructive in promoting democracy in the region and beyond in the years to come.

Irrespective of such developments, some people may wonder why Korea is stepping up its efforts to promote human rights and democracy around the world. Pointing out our limited human and financial resources, they might argue that we should focus more on our own development or other pressing foreign policy issues. In response, I would like to offer some food for thought.

First of all, advancing human rights and democracy is one of the most urgent tasks facing the global community. Serious human rights violations still persist in many parts of the world, while human dignity continues to be threatened by poverty, discrimination, torture, terrorism and even genocide.

Meanwhile, there are many volatile countries where democracy is constantly being degraded or threatened by corruption, weak rule of law and military coups. Despite such grave circumstances, in this globalized world where countries are more or less interconnected, a single nation cannot resolve these complicated issues alone.

In order to properly address these challenges, concerted actions by the international community as a whole are required. In short, if we do not act together, we are bound to fail together.

Secondly, promoting human rights and democracy is an issue to which Korea can make substantial contributions, based on our own unique experience. Korea is widely regarded as a success story for having achieved democracy and economic development within a relatively short period of time.

I believe that our experience could serve as a useful reference for many countries, and that it is our responsibility as a respectable partner to share our best practices and assist others in their pursuit of enhancing human rights and democracy.

Last but not least, by playing an active role in building a better and more just world, we will be able to increase our global prominence, and thus be able to further expand cooperation and friendship with other members of this more-than-ever global society.

In this season of sharing with others, I am sure you would be pleased to know that your country did not forget those who are less fortunate.



출 처: 코리아타임스  08/12/24