[Articles]
The Quarterly Changbi 210, Fall 2025
Abstract
In the Articles section, the eighth installment of the ongoing series “In Search of K Discourse” features Park Buhm Soon’s essay on Cho Young rae’s human rights thought. Through concrete examples, it shows how Cho’s human rights philosophy was shaped through practices that altered historical currents in his work as an activist and a human rights lawyer. It offers an engaging look at his work, ranging from The Biography of Jeon Tae il to Korea’s first class action lawsuit over the Mangwon-dong flood disaster, the Bucheon Police Station sexual torture case, and the pneumoconiosis litigation that expanded the scope of human rights to include environmental rights. This article shows that human rights thinking, often explained as an import from Western ideas, was in fact generated and deepened within the history of this place. Suh Jae-jung’s essay offers a structural and comprehensive understanding of “Trump Administration 2.0” in order to address the difficult question of how to respond to what many identify as a major source of today’s global disorder. He analyzes the policies, driving forces, and implications for the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia of the second Trump administration.