Secretary General Hong's Interview with Tongil News on Sanctions Exemption

UN Grants Sanctions Exemption to Korean Sharing Movement and Medical Aid for Children for Humanitarian Aid to North Korea

In an interview with Tongil News published on January 25^th, Korean Sharing Movement Secretary General Hong and Medical Aid for Children Secretary General Eom talk about sanctions exemptions and inter-Korean cooperative projects.

The Korean Sharing Movement (KSM) and Medical Aid for Children were each granted a sanctions exemption under the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1718 Committee (hereafter "the Committee") to engage in the Gaepung tree nursery modernization project and Mankyung University Children’s hospital medical supplies project respectively.

Since guidelines for the exemption application were published back in August 2018, a total of 38 organisations have been granted an exemption from the Committee. Amongst them, only two were local South Korean organisations.

KSM applied for a sanctions exemption on November 20th, 2019 and appealed directly to Committee related officials who attended the 2019 International Conference on Humanitarian Cooperation and Peaceful Development on the Korean Peninsula held in New York in early November. The approval came through on December 2nd.

Medical Aid for Children had applied for an exemption even earlier in April last year through the Ministry of Unification’s shipping to North Korea system for the approval of deliveries of medical equipment to Pyeongyang, the capital city of North Korea. However, its approval only came through 7 months later in November.

After the Committee's decision to provide an exemption on materials necessary for the Gaepung Tree Nursery project was made, KSM quickly suggested to the officials in the North for the project's recommencement stating that they were ready to start overland delivery of materials.

Medical Aid for Children made a conscious effort to keep the U.N. approval decision undisclosed while waiting for a response from the North, purposely requesting that the exemption not be published on the Committee’s website. However, both organisations have yet to make concrete progress with the North regarding the project proposals.

Image 1: For the first time amongst local NGOs in South Korea, Medical Aid for Children was granted a U.N. sanction exemption on November 26th last year. Secretary-General Eom Joo-Hyun (of Medical Aid for Children) hopes to receive a positive response from the North Korean officials.

 

Image 2: Secretary-General Hong Sang-Yong (of Korean Sharing Movement) who directly went and explained the project to officials related to the Committee commented, "I believe the continuous effort despite the challenging circumstances has resulted in such an outcome."

As SG Eom Joo-Hyun and SG Hong Sang-Yong met in the office of KSM on January 21^st the mood was hopeful, "Currently we are at a stage where we must wait for an official response from the North regarding these proposals whilst they organize their position. We are hoping for efforts to practically resolve the difficulties that are being faced.”

They both stated that as sanctions have become entrenched and the North purports a strategy of self-reliance, there will be a need for practical measures at various levels which could create some space for joint cooperation.

SG Hong, emphasizing the importance of civil society’s role, stated, “Since living under U.N. sanctions has now become the reality, receiving sanctions exemptions is an effective way to progress exchange and cooperation. An independent, civil society-level exchange and cooperation sphere is pivotal for stronger South-North relations."

SG Eom added, "North Korea seems to have now accepted the reality of living under sanctions. I think that for the North to receive the supplies they require there needs to be an acknowledgement that they need sanctions exemptions approvals, and therefore actually I would like them to actively acknowledge our efforts."

Receiving the tangible result of a sanctions exemption has also validated the efforts needed to get one and provided confidence to those involved.

For any local NGOs applying for a sanctions exemption, they must first apply to the South-North Exchanges and Cooperation Support Association (SONOSA). SONOSA then processes the application in collaboration with the Ministry of Unification and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and requests numerous modifications and additions. Then, the refined application gets sent to the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In getting this far there is no manual or specific guideline and every application has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

The most critical element of the application is perhaps the inputting of the HS Code (Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System) and sorting the number of items and quantities subject to approval from the U.N. In order to do this the applicant organisation needs to come up with an extremely detailed project plan because a vague plan would not yield the required details regarding the HS codes. Once the project plan is created, SONOSA then provides editing and translation support. 

In the case of the Gaepung Tree Nursery project, KSM had to specify the HS Codes and also the material, diameter, thickness, and width for every item (including pipes, vinyl, and kettles). SG Hong recalls that this documentation process alone spanned around four months.

SG Eom commented on the duration of the exemption application process, saying, "The same application process for our organisation (Medical Aid for Children) took around seven months after we uploaded the application to the Ministry of Unification’s system in April. It may seem long, but actually, many people in the field have told me that a 7-month wait is considered as being on the quick side. What KSM has done is certainly unprecedented in that they could expedite the process by directly speaking to those involved whilst hosting their International Conference in the U.S."

As the documentation stage of the application requires tremendous effort and time, applying for the exemption is an undoubtedly tricky task and would not be undertaken lightly without experience in the field and a certain degree of competency. These instances of exemptions approval have, however, created a lot of interest among other local South Korean NGOs and several are now thought to be preparing for future inter-Korean project sanctions exemption requests.

Nonetheless, one challenging part of this process is that the Committee is responsible for establishing regulations and implementing the monitoring system of the sanctions and then also processing exemptions approvals. The very fact that their initial focus is on implementation and enforcement may restrict their flexibility in providing exemptions for items with a humanitarian purposes which could however also be used for other means.

KSM required a sanctions waiver for 80% of the materials necessary for the Gaepung Tree Nursery project, a project that was suspended back in 2010 due to the South Korean government’s May 24th measures. This amounted to 152 items including greenhouse construction materials, containers, a tractor, solar panels, and tools. KSM submitted their application to the Committee on November 20th and heard back within a couple of days with a request for clarification on several points and that approval would be granted on condition that these were answered via the South Korean government.

In the case of Medical Aid for Children, they were granted an exemption for portable ultrasound machines, panorama dental C.T. scanner and air purifiers to be sent to Mankyung University Children’s Hospital located in Pyeongyang. After submitting their application in May they received feedback from the Committee in June and September. First, the Committee wanted to know why their medical assistance was planned for the capital city instead of other needier regions. Second, the Committee wanted assurances that the medical equipment could only be used for medical purposes and wanted guarantees on how Medical Aid for Children would ensure this when they do not have a resident office in North Korea.

In response to the two issues raised, Medical Aid for Children convinced the Committee that setting the capital as the starting point of medical assistance is the most effective way of further spreading medical sector development projects to other regions. Also, they explained that regular visits to the North would allow them to overcome the hurdle of not having an office in Pyongyang. As SG Eom recalled this experience, she said that there were several moments when her team was on the verge of giving up and withdrawing the application due to the continuous difficulties that they came across during their application.

Image 3: The exemption approval document KSM received in December 2019.

Despite the struggles they went through, both SG Hong and SG Eom agreed that applying for the exemption to push for such inter-Korean projects was worth the effort.

SG Hong mentioned, "During the recent past, the Committee has developed understanding about international organisations and their style of projects focused in the regions with their style of monitoring, these organisations reside in Pyongyang and deal with the North regularly. In contrast, their understanding of local South Korean NGOs is still quite limited, primarily because we have been cut off for the past ten years. It wasn't even that our government was sufficiently able to convey our position and so I do think that going to the US and explaining the specifics of the processes and convincing them of our position face-to-face was very important."

It could be said that the Committee is familiar with the activities and also context of international organisations but that seeing as they had only had contact with South Korean organizations through documents there was a gap in mutual understanding.

SG Hong also added, "It could be possible for some to argue that the reason behind the recent exemptions granted by the Committee has to do with North Korea breaking off nuclear talks with the United States in Stockholm, which resulted in the US feeling a need to apply a more conciliatory approach with the North. I think, however, that directly appealing to the stakeholders has been a bigger factor and demonstrating the effort we will going and knocking on their doors in the US has borne fruit with the approval decision."

International organisations have also had complaints with regards to the exemptions process of the Committee.

The relevant resolution on North Korea states that humanitarian activities must not be impeded by sanctions. International organisations have also complained numerous times that the requests of the Committee in the sanctions exemption process are too demanding. This may have prompted the Committee’s expert panel to include in their March 2019 report on sanctions a separate section of the report dedicated to the 'unintended humanitarian impacts of the sanctions.'

SG Eom lastly mentioned, "The items we have successfully received an exemption for are not emergency relief supplies which the North also does not hope for, but could be considered as materials for development cooperation. I believe that these exemptions approvals show that this was worth doing. I hope that this could become the spark to revitalize South North NGO exchange."

*United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1718 Committee is a subsidiary body established in 2016 by the UNSC resolution 1718 to oversee the relevant sanctions measures relating to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

**Tong-Il News original article in Korean is available at: http://www.tongilnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=131113