The Unhcr’s Failure With North Korean Refugees in South Korea (2017-2022)

Abstract

This research analyzes the failure of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in dealing with the problem of North Korean refugees in South Korea in the 2017-2022 period. This research aims to find out how UNHCR failed to deal with North Korean refugees in South Korea, especially during the Moon Jae In Presidency period in 2017-2022 when relations between North Korea and South Korea experienced an increase but declined again due to the intervention of the United States and had an impact on the decline in Korean refugees. North to South Korea. In this research, the author used Giulio M. Gallarotti's concept about the limits of international organizations as a tool to analyze the UNHCR's failures, namely systematic failures which are divided into four general ways, namely, (1) managing a complex, tightly coupled system, ( 2) adverse substitution, (3) dispute intensification, and finally (4) moral hazard. From this research, it was found that UNHCR's failure analysis with the concept of systematic failure created the roles, functions, and goals of UNHCR towards North Korean refugees naturally encouraging the organization to fail instead of helping the refugees of North Korea.