2026, Vol.9, No.1

Journal of Human Rights Studies 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 1.19

pISSN : 2635-4632 / eISSN : 2765-6748
https://journal.kci.go.kr/jhrs

Research on human rights in South Korea has grown steadily over the past two decades across multiple disciplines, including law, political science, education, and social welfare. However, few attempts have been made to provide a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary overview of the field, as existing trend analyses have been limited to individual disciplines and based on relatively small samples. This study analyzes the thematic structure and temporal shifts in Korean human rights research by applying Contextualized Topic Modeling (CTM) to 10,739 journal articles published between 2001 and 2025, retrieved from the Korea Citation Index (KCI) using the keyword “human rights” (인권). The analysis identified 49 research topics, reclassified into eight broader categories. Topics in traditionally dominant normative and institutional areas-such as constitutional law, criminal justice, and international human rights-maintained a high overall share but exhibited a gradual decline. In contrast, topics tied to everyday life, including education and children, welfare and care, and discrimination and minorities, showed a sustained increase. Emerging issues such as climate and the environment, artificial intelligence, and anti-discrimination legislation were also found to be gaining momentum, albeit from a small base. An importance- performance analysis (IPA) framework was further applied to map the standing and trajectory of each topic across four quadrants, identifying areas of expansion, stabilization, and contraction. This study empirically charts the macro level landscape and evolving directions of human rights research in South Korea through large scale, interdisciplinary bibliometric analysis.

This study examines the court’s understanding of sexual violence manifested in male-on-male sexual violence cases to analyze how gender operates in men's victimization of sexual violence. The main findings are as follows. First, similar to male-on-female sexual violence, “obscenity” tended to serve as a criterion for determining victimization. Second, in cases of male victims of sexual violence, the recognition of coercion and the absence of suspicion of false accusation were notably more pronounced compared to cases involving female victims. Third, the court’s judgment of sexual violence was grounded in the norm that only heterosexual relations are natural; consequently, when the defendant was homosexual, a pronounced tendency to reduce sexual violence to a matter of excessive sexual desire emerged. This perspective of the court in interpreting and recognizing male-on-male sexual violence victimization exposes the contradictions of the current androcentric and heteronormative gender relations when compared to male-on-female sexual violence victimization.

According to the Declaration on the Right to Development, which marks its 40th anniversary this year, development is “an inalienable human right by which every human person and peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural, and political development in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.” Historically, discussions on the Right to Development emerged in earnest during the 1960s, driven by Third World states seeking to restructure the international order advancing claims against the Global North. Today, this right has acquired significance as a universal global right that extends beyond individual states in responding to global challenges. Nevertheless, the declaratory nature of the Right to Development, which remains in the form of a United Nations General Assembly resolution, continues to limit its effective implementation. This article argues that, given the nature of the Right to Development as a right to be realized through international cooperation, its implementation should be strengthened on the basis of the duty of international cooperation enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights treaties. However, the duty of international cooperation under the existing international human rights framework has largely been implemented through state-centered cooperation and obligation of conducts, thereby limiting its capacity to address global structural inequalities. Furthermore, states in the Global North have remained reluctant to engage in international cooperation for the realization of the Right to Development, while the recent rise of national interest-oriented diplomacy and the weakening of multilateral cooperation have further constrained international cooperation. Accordingly, this article examines the emerging discourse on the evolution of the duty of international cooperation beyond a state-centered framework toward a Global Obligation, and explores its implications for the future development of international cooperation. This perspective seeks to promote a just international order and encourages collective responses to transboundary issues that threaten sustainable development, including the climate crisis and global poverty. To operationalize this concept, several issues require further development. First, discussions on the subjects of global obligation need to expand beyond states to include private actors. Second, traditional notion of “causation” must not operate as a limiting factor on the duty of international cooperation. Finally, the principles of international law for global justice - as reflected in the concept of ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities’ (CBDR) - should be incorporated in an integrated manner. This will strengthen the links among the pluralized international regimes, including those relating to human rights and trade, and enable the development of collective responses by global actors.