Ecology, security and international action: beyond sanctions on North Korea
Bourdais Park J. Bridges B.
2021Routledge
Third World Quarterly
2021#42Issue 102413 - 2433 pp.
This article explores the international measures that can resolve ecological problems in a highly securitised zone, taking North Korea (DPRK) as an example. The main question posed is how effective the available international policy measures for ecological risk mitigation are in a highly securitised country. Irreversible ecological conditions and aggravating humanitarian crises co-influence each other and threaten society as a whole. The main purpose of the article is to suggest ways of mainstreaming the environmental aspect of security in international actions that engage with problematised countries like North Korea. A cross-cutting analysis is provided on the possible approaches–including environmental aid, extended or integral humanitarian exemption, and proactive ecological intervention–for the international community to be engaged in the field of environmental security under three different circumstances: peace, security alert and conflict. The current international measures employed in North Korea demonstrate that available tools are either overused or underused, thereby failing to address the interconnectivity of the triple perils for the economy, human welfare and ecosystem, and further aggravating political tensions.
DPR Korea (North Korea) , ecological intervention , economic sanctions , environmental , humanitarian exemption , security
Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи
Department of International Relations and Regional Studies, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Department of Political Science, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Department of International Relations and Regional Studies
Department of Political Science
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026