South Korea 's new government should adopt measures to address human rights problems in the country and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to President Lee Jae-myung. It is critically important for the government to bolster democratic institutions, end entrenched discrimination, protect digital rights, and promote North Koreans' human rights.
President Lee took office on June 4, 2025, after winning the presidential elections following the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk-yeol for imposing martial law in December 2024.
"South Korea's election cycle followed mass protests in support of accountable government," said Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher at Human Rights Watch. "President Lee Jae-myung should engage constructively on the range of human rights issues facing the country, including protecting freedoms of expression, assembly, and the media, strengthening digital rights and social protections, and addressing systemic discrimination against women and marginalized groups."
The South Korean government should act to safeguard civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, Human Rights Watch said. These include ensuring the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and the press. The government should also pass a comprehensive anti-discrimination law protecting women and girls, older people, people with low socio-economic status, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, people with disabilities, migrants, and North Korean escapees.
Other priorities include closing the gender pay gap and combating digital sex crimes; ensuring that artificial intelligence regulations protect privacy and children's rights; and strengthening pensions and social protections. The government should also prevent the misuse of emergency, security, and defamation laws to silence dissent. It should advance climate justice; reduce fossil fuel dependency, notably new liquified natural gas projects, and increase opportunities to generate renewable energy.
The government should also propose legislation to require companies to prevent, mitigate, and remediate actual and potential adverse human rights, labor, environmental, and climate impacts, and promote North Korean human rights through full implementation of the 2016 North Korean Human Rights Act.
"President Lee Jae-myung should recognize that taking office presents both opportunities to advance the rights of the South Korean people and possible pitfalls should existing rights concerns fail to be addressed," Yoon said. "The new government's actions will not only affect the rights of people in South Korea, but also those of North Koreans and many others around the world."
