Bennett Freeman is a managing director in the Washington, DC office of Burson-Marsteller, where he leads the firm's Global Corporate Responsibility practice advising multinational corporations on issues ranging from human rights and labor practices to the environment and sustainable development. Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller in May 2003, Freeman advised companies, international institutions and NGOs on corporate responsibility and human rights as Principal of Sustainable Investment Strategies. In 2002, he co-authored an independent Human Rights Impact Assessment of the BP Tangguh project in Papua, Indonesia, the first such assessment undertaken in advance of a major energy project in the world.

Freeman served as a presidential appointee in three positions in the State Department across the full span of the Clinton Administration. As U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from 1999 to early 2001, Freeman led the State Department's bilateral human rights diplomacy around the world under Assistant Secretary Harold Koh. In that capacity, he was the principal architect of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, the first human rights standard forged by governments, companies and NGOs for the oil and mining industries. Previously he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and chief speechwriter for Secretary of State Warren Christopher from early 1993 to early 1997.

A buffet lunch will be available to those who reserve with Debbie Warren dawarren@stanford.edu by Friday, November 12.

A buffet lunch will be available to those who RSVP by 12:00pm, Wednesday, April 21 to Rakhi Patel. In the last three years, partly as the result of the efforts of a burgeoning conservative movement, the issue of human rights in North Korea has attained greater prominence in the statements and policy positions of the U.S. government. The administration connects this shift in emphasis in U.S. policy to its calls for greater moral clarity in foreign policy. At the same time, the administration has clearly enunciated its desire for regime change in North Korea, and the human rights issue has served as a method of cultivating public support for this policy, both domestically and internationally. Toward this end, the administration has revived a Cold War foreign policy approach from the 1970s and 1980s that connected human rights to economic and security issues--exemplified in the Jackson-Vanik amendment linking trade to emigration levels for Soviet Jews and the inclusion of human rights issues in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The application of this model to North Korea demonstrates a failure to understand the differences between Eastern Europe and East Asia in general and the nature of civil society under Soviet communism and North Korean juche. It also fails to draw any useful lessons from the experience of the European Union and South Korea in dealing with Pyongyang on human rights. The unquestionably dire human rights situation in North Korea--and the character of its government and society--requires a set of policy approaches that need updating from the Cold War period and adaptation to the North Korean and East Asian context. John Feffer's most recent book is North Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories, 2003). He is also the editor of the Foreign Policy in Focus book Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Policy after September 11 (Seven Stories, 2003). His other books include Beyond Detente: Soviet Foreign Policy and U.S. Options (Hill & Wang, 1990) and Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions (South End, 1992). His other edited collections include Living in Hope: People Challenging Globalization (Zed Books, 2002) and (with Richard Caplan) Europe's New Nationalism: States and Minorities in Conflict (Oxford University Press, 1996). His articles have appeared in The American Prospect, The Progressive, Newsday, Asiaweek, Asia Times, TomPaine.com, Salon.com, and elsewhere. He is a former associate editor of World Policy Journal and has worked for the American Friends Service Committee, most recently as an international affairs representative in East Asia. He serves on the advisory committees of FPIF and the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea.

Future historians will mark the first national election to be held in Malaysia since the retirement of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (1981-2003) as a watershed in the country's political history. Among key questions circulating in the run-up to the voting on 21 March 2004 were these: Would the ruling National Front gain or lose votes and seats? (Surprise: gained greatly.) Would the opposition Islamic Party, now in control of two states, improve or worsen its position? (Surprise: worsened sharply.) Would KeADILan, the political party which emerged after the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim, gain or lose? (Surprise: lost badly.) Answers to other questions were still unknown: Would the election benefit Malaysia's current Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, at the congress of his political party later this year? What would the ruling coalition's landslide imply for Malaysian democracy, stability, and development? For Malaysia's role in the campaign against terrorism? For the country's relations with its neighbors and with the U.S.? (Surprise: Come hear Elizabeth Wong and find out.)

This is the ninth seminar of the 2003-2004 academic year Southeast Asia Forum.

Ambassador Park joined the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1963 and has served as deputy minister for political affairs, ambassador to Morocco and Canada, ambassador to the UN office in Geneva and GATT, chancellor of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, special envoy to Iran, Jordan, Qatar and Oman, chief representative of the ROK on the UN Security Council, and president of the UN Security Council. He is currently president of the UN Association of the Republic of Korea.