Three issues against North Korea.

The proposed treaty is a peace treaty. The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea, as the 1950-1953 Korean War was ended in a ceasefire - technically the war is not over. A peace treaty sends the message that we accept the outcome of the war, and we no longer have a dispute. The BBC documentary, Access to Evil, contained the accounts of several North Korean defectors. (The transcript can be found at this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk... I will refer to this documentary several times.) South Korea's Unification Minister had this to say in the documentary: "We do not encourage any North Koreans to defect." [INTERVIEWER] "Why not?" "We want to improve the situation in North Korea so that North Koreans do not have to defect. That's our primary concern. Regime change is not our objective . We want to negotiate with North Korean Government to improve situation in North Korea. "Regime change is not your objective?" "No." The problem with this is obvious. Negotiation is not going to change North Korea's behaviour. Their promises to hold talks on nuclear disarmament could hardly be held to truth. Defectors, however, who have experienced the full-blown truth about North Korea, recognise this. They know better than to make deals with the devil. Defector Hwang Jang Yop, a former politician from North Korea contends that the regime is evil and that the US should not seek any deal with North Korea. http://en.wikipedia.org... - The article states, "However, under the Sunshine Policy of president Kim Dae-jung, who took office in 1998, Hwang found himself increasingly marginalised; in November 2000, he was removed from the chairmanship of the Unification Policy Research Institute, leading him to complain that the South Korean government wanted him to stay quiet so as not to upset the North." The South wants to have its cake and eat it too - to seek a peaceful resolution and yet end human rights violations. It's not going to happen, and they know it. Now, I'm not an advocate for war unless it is the last resort, which is why I favour the intervention of the ICC. _________ More on that in a moment. First, since you brought up economic action, let's think about this. We know that much of North Korea's budget goes into the military spending. This is not in dispute. I quote, on the subject of food aid: "The rationing is actually done. One representative of each family stands in line to receive rice or corn."However, when night comes, leaders of people's groups and clerks of the Labour Party visit each home and take all of the rationed food back. They say to each family, 'Let's feed the sons and daughters who are starving and fighting on the front line.'" The food donated by foreign countries is called "rice for patriots" and transformed into food for military forces. (http://www.flatrock.org.nz...) Money spent by North Korea to advance the personality cult of Kim Sung-Il and Kim Jong-il: http://www.dailynk.com... And much funding also comes from Chosen Soren (Chongryon) (http://en.wikipedia.org...) a organisation that supports North Korea, (and is essentially run by the regime) which operates businesses in Japan and transfers money to North Korea to support it. "In 2003, a North Korean defector made a statement to the US Senate committee stating that more than 90% of the parts used by North Korea to construct its missiles were brought from Japan aboard the ship [Mangyongbong-92]." (http://en.wikipedia.org...). In this way, economic sanctions make little difference to the people. But you can hurt the regime economically. (However, the North has recently declared it will accept food aid from the South - whether or not the rationing system will be fair is currently unknown.) _______ ICC: While North Korea currently has not accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC, a peaceful, and reasonably civilised way to bring North Korea to justice is to arrest them. My opponent has not argued this. I do not have the burden to prove anything about that - you accept that the triumvirate is responsible for the control and occurrences in North Korea, and you also accept that such occurrences exist, testified to by defectors, a list of which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org.... The Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity: [in these brackets I have listed sources for the acts committed by North Korea] "For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: (a) Murder; [source: the Aquariums of Pyongyang, Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot] (b) Extermination; (c) Enslavement; (d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population; (e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; (f) Torture; [source: the Aquariums of Pyongyang, Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot] (g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; [source: the Aquariums of Pyongyang, Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, http://en.wikipedia.org...] (h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court; (POLITICAL) [a number of sources already listed] (i) Enforced disappearance of persons; [http://en.wikipedia.org..., the Aquariums of Pyongyang] (j) The crime of apartheid; (k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health." [Aquariums of Pyongyang, http://www.guardian.co.uk..., Access to Evil, BCC 2004 (see above)] Kim Jong-Il retains full control of the country. All defectors have spoken of various crimes against humanity and other human rights violations, and some have testified to them in the US Senate. ______ Now, I agree that we should avoid nuclear war at all costs, but, we should clarify some things: The US and its allies, even UN forces, make up a far larger army that North Korea and even China alone. Furthermore, the US also has more advanced military technology that North Korea does not. Whether or not it is wise, it is our sense of humanity which has always sent us to root out terror wherever it thrives. That is what sent us into Korea in the first place! It is what sent us to WWII, to Vietnam (though I hate to reference Vietnam as an example, in Korea the fighting is not against guerillas but an organised, easily targeted government), what has us in the Middle East today. It is what sends UN missions into dangerous and unstable territories. North Korea is a country of almost 30million people, suffering under the rule of what is essentially a crime gang. It violates almost every human right imaginable. Citizens cannot leave the nation, and cannot even move around their own country. They are only allowed access to propaganda on TV and radio, and freedom is virtually non-existent. North Korea continues to trade in illegal materials, drugs and even radioactive elements to terrorist organisations, to fund its evil. 30million human beings are suffering, and the regime must be removed.