Transitional justice without transition: norm contestation and accountability in North Korea

Transitional justice is usually associated with political change, yet justice-related practices have developed around the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) without either a transition or a domestic route to accountability. This article explores how this activity has acquired institutional form while the DPRK remains in power and rejects the authority of the institutions pursuing accountability. Drawing on interpretive documentary analysis of materials produced between 2014 and 2026, I approach transitional justice as a contested norm cluster. Since the 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry reported that crimes against humanity had been committed and called for accountability, documentation and evidence preservation have become embedded in institutions outside North Korea, even though criminal proceedings remain politically remote. This work has produced a considerable evidentiary record despite continuing disagreement over what justice means and who has authority to define it. I show how the DPRK uses human rights language on its own terms while refusing the legal reasoning connecting violations to criminal responsibility. I then discuss how changes of government in South Korea have altered the priority and public visibility of accountability work more than the infrastructure sustaining it. Concurrently, civil society organizations and diaspora members have helped build the record, although North Korean escapees themselves retain less authority over what future justice should involve. I argue that the North Korean case reveals a key feature of anticipatory transitional justice, where institutions and expectations can accumulate during prolonged contestation, even without broader acceptance of the norm or movement toward implementation.