North Korea's legislative response to COVID-19: a way forward or backward?

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea adopted the Emergency Communicable Disease Control Act. The DPRK's legislative response is noteworthy in five dimensions: effectiveness of communicable disease control; predictability of the authority's response; response to emerging non-traditional security challenges; development of legal techniques; and the role of law in the society. Several provisions in the Act however prompt questions about its compliance with international human rights norms, concerning the threshold for declaring a state of emergency, the proportionality of measures, and the prohibition of discrimination. The article explores whether this legislative response leads forward or backward for the DPRK.