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Would the coexistence of human rights and development in North Korea possible? Whilethere is another round of meeting between Trump and Kim Jungun waiting, there is anoverused word of “economic prosperity” by both Moon and Trump since the spring of2018 as compensation for North Korea’s denuclearisation. It throws concern as their political rhetoric sounds not much different from economic developmentalists who prioritised development over human rights. The case may be worse for North Korea due to its position as a human rights perpetrator for the last decades. While the discourse about the development of North Korea is blooming with this background, this paper explores the possibility of linking human rights and development in the context of North Korea based on many scholars who explained about the nexus between development and human rights including Peter Uvin. SDG indicators from the United Nations will be juxtaposed with human rights records of North Korea from 1996 to 2018. For the human rights records, the White Paper on Human Rights in North Korean from the Korea Institute for National Unification will be utilised as it is the best established human rights record on North Korea.

SDG; human rights; North Korea