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| SEOUL — A grieving couple in Ohio, a retired preschool teacher in South Korea and a woman who left Japan 62 years ago have one thing in common: They are among a small number of people who have sued North Korea. |
| 首尔——俄亥俄州一对悲恸的夫妇、韩国一名退休幼儿园教师，以及一位62年前离开日本的女性有一个共同点：他们都是少数起诉了朝鲜的人之一。 |
| Their civil litigation — often over physical mistreatment and abductions at the hands of North Korean authorities — is part of a quiet, yearslong effort by a handful of individuals seeking justice despite the huge challenge of ever collecting money from the isolated nation. Similar suits have been filed against the governments of Iran, Syria and other American adversaries. |
| 多年来，有少数个人控诉朝鲜当局实施人身虐待和绑架，这几起民事诉讼是他们默默寻求正义的努力的一部分，尽管从这个孤立的国家得到资金赔偿会非常困难。也曾有人针对伊朗、叙利亚和其他与美国为敌的政府提出类似诉讼。 |
| These families typically hope the lawsuits will keep their accusations in the public eye and lay the groundwork for criminal prosecutions in international courts, said Gregory S. Gordon, a law professor who has served as a prosecutor or adviser for international criminal cases in Bosnia, Cambodia and Rwanda. |
| 曾在波斯尼亚、柬埔寨和卢旺达担任国际刑事案件检察官或顾问的法学教授格雷戈里·S·戈登说，这些家庭通常希望这些诉讼能够让他们的指控持续曝光在公众视野中，并为在国际法院提起刑事诉讼奠定基础。 |
| On a personal level, the cases are vehicles for families to grapple with the trauma of their loss, said Professor Gordon, who teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “Being able to bring these claims allows them to go through that process more effectively and more holistically,” he added. |
| 在香港中文大学任教的戈登说，就个体而言，诉讼是这些家庭应对丧亲创伤的途径。“能够提出索赔使他们可以更有效、更全面地完成这个过程，”他补充说。 |
| Even though the lawsuits are rare and the chances of giant payouts exceedingly slim, American courts have recently awarded a few plaintiffs money derived from seized North Korean assets. That has given some families in the United States and East Asia a reason to be cautiously optimistic. |
| 尽管这类诉讼罕见，巨额赔付的机会也非常渺茫，但美国法院最近还是将没收的朝鲜资产转换为一些赔偿金判给了原告。这让美国和东亚的一些家庭有理由保持谨慎乐观。 |
| The retired teacher, Choi Byung-hee, has a fresh court hearing in South Korea later this summer. “I’m going to keep pushing until we get justice,” said Ms. Choi, 73, whose father was abducted and sent to North Korea when she was a baby. “Since the government won’t help us, I’m taking things into my own hands.” |
| 今年夏天晚些时候，退休教师崔秉熙（音）将在韩国出席新的法庭听证会。“我会继续努力，直到我们讨回公道，”73岁的崔女士说，在她还是个婴儿时，父亲就被绑架至朝鲜。“既然政府不会帮助我们，那我就要自己行动了。” |
| Success and setbacks |
| 成功与挫折 |
| In the United States, a flurry of cases were filed in civil courts against individuals, many of them government officials, starting in the 1980s, under an obscure 18th-century law that has since been narrowed by the Supreme Court. Other families have filed civil cases under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which opened federal courts to categories of cases, including terrorism, against foreign governments. |
| 在美国，从1980年代开始，一些人根据一部鲜有人知的18世纪法律提起了一系列诉讼，其中多起诉讼针对政府官员，最高法院后来缩小了该法的适用范围。还有一些家庭根据1976年的《外国主权豁免法》提起民事诉讼，该法案让联邦法院可以受理针对外国政府的各类案件，包括恐怖主义案件。 |
| Perhaps the most notable recent victory was the case involving the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died in 2017 after suffering a brain injury in a North Korean prison. They were awarded more than half a billion dollars in damages the following year. And in 2021, the same court awarded $2.3 billion to the crew members (and their surviving relatives) of the U.S.S. Pueblo, an American naval ship that had been held hostage by North Korea for 11 months in 1968. |
| 最近最引人注目的胜利可能来自涉及美国大学生奥托·瓦姆比尔的父母的案件。2017年，在朝鲜监狱中的瓦姆比尔在脑部受伤后去世。第二年，他的父母获得了超过10亿美元的赔偿金。2021年，同一法院判决美国海军舰艇普韦布洛号船员（及其幸存的亲属）获得23亿美元赔偿。1968年，该舰艇被朝鲜扣为人质长达11个月。 |
| That partial success has inspired some people outside the United States to sue North Korea in local courts. One is Eiko Kawasaki, 79, an ethnic Korean woman born in Japan, who moved to North Korea in 1960 and eventually married a North Korean man. She did not return to Japan until she defected in 2003 after the death of her husband, leaving her children behind. |
| 这些局部的成功，激励了美国以外的一些人在当地法院起诉朝鲜。其中一位是79岁的朝鲜族女性川崎荣子，她在日本出生，1960年移居朝鲜，后来嫁给了一名朝鲜男子。直到2003年，她在丈夫去世后叛逃，返回日本，孩子留在了朝鲜。 |
| Ms. Kawasaki had traveled to the North as part of a resettlement program that was run by Pyongyang and facilitated by Japan, which had colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. She worked for years in a North Korean factory and suffered from discrimination and a lack of food, she said. |
| 1910年至1945年期间，朝鲜半岛曾是日本的殖民地。在平壤实施并由日本协助进行的重新安置计划下，川崎前往朝鲜。她说，她在朝鲜的一家工厂工作了多年，遭遇歧视和食物短缺。 |
| In 2018, a few months after the Warmbiers won their case in the United States, Ms. Kawasaki and four other defectors sued Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, in a Tokyo court for damages they said they had suffered under the resettlement program. |
| 2018年，瓦姆比尔的父母在美国赢得官司几个月后，川崎和其他四名脱北者在东京法院起诉朝鲜领导人金正恩，要求赔偿他们称在重新安置计划下遭受的损失。 |
| The court rejected their case in March, in part because a 20-year statute of limitations had expired. But it accepted much of the evidence they submitted, potentially laying the groundwork for future cases against the North. Their lawyer said at the time that they planned to appeal. |
| 法院在3月驳回了他们的诉讼，部分原因是已超过20年的诉讼时效时间。但法院接受了他们提交的大部分证据，可能为未来针对朝鲜的案件奠定基础。他们的律师当时表示打算上诉。 |
| Ms. Kawasaki’s children remain in North Korea, and she said in an interview that the ruling, along with the Warmbier family’s 2018 court victory, gave her hope that she could win the appeal. She added that her financial claim — 100 million yen, about $734,000 — was far less important than her desire to see her family. |
| 川崎的孩子仍留在朝鲜，她在接受采访时表示，这项裁决以及瓦姆比尔父母在2018年的法庭胜利，让她对获胜产生了希望。她补充说，她的金钱索赔——1亿日元，约合73.4万美元（折合人民币约495.1万元）——远没有她想要见到家人的愿望重要。 |
| It may be hard for young people today to understand how such human rights violations could take place in North Korea, she added. “But it could really happen to anyone, anytime. Like Otto. Or me.” |
| 她还说，今天的年轻人可能很难理解这种侵犯人权行为是如何在朝鲜发生的。“但它真的可能随时发生在任何人身上。就像奥托一样。或者我。” |
| ‘They want justice’ |
| “他们要的是正义” |
| Winning a default civil judgment against North Korea in the United States does not translate into an immediate cash award, in part because the country has few assets or properties that the American authorities can seize. That forces plaintiffs to pursue other options. |
| 在美国赢得一场针对朝鲜的缺席民事审判并不会立即转化为现金赔偿，部分原因是朝鲜几乎没有美国当局可以扣押的资产或财产。这迫使原告寻求其他选择。 |
| In 2019, Otto Warmbier’s parents were among the plaintiffs who collected an undisclosed amount of money when the United States authorities sold a captured North Korean cargo ship. And in January, a court in New York State ruled that $240,000 that was to be seized from a state-owned North Korean bank should also be given to the family. |
| 2019年美国当局出售一艘被扣押的朝鲜货船，一批起诉人得到了一笔未披露金额的赔款，其中就包括奥托·瓦姆比尔的父母。而在1月，纽约州的一家法院裁定，从一家朝鲜国有银行扣押的24万美元也应该交给这个家庭。 |
| Multiple efforts to reach the Warmbiers and their lawyers were unsuccessful. In 2018, Otto’s father, Fred Warmbier, said at a symposium at the United Nations headquarters in New York that the family was trying to build a legal “pathway” to holding Mr. Kim, the North’s leader, responsible for their 22-year-old son’s death. |
| 记者多次试图联系瓦姆比尔夫妇及其律师，但均未成功。2018年，奥托的父亲弗雷德·瓦姆比尔在纽约联合国总部的一个研讨会上说，这家人试图建立一条法律“途径”，让朝鲜领导人金正恩对他们22岁儿子的死亡负责。 |
| “How can anybody be quiet when this is going on? The only thing we can do is rub their noses in this,” Otto’s mother, Cindy Warmbier, said at the symposium, referring to North Korean officials. “It embarrasses them.” |
| “出了这种事，谁能保持沉默？我们唯一能做的就是在这件事上让他们难堪，”奥托的母亲辛迪·瓦姆比尔在研讨会上提到朝鲜官员时说。“这会让他们尴尬。” |
| The family’s lawyers appear to be following a strategy of filing court claims on seized North Korean assets before they can be deposited into a United States government fund that compensates victims of state-sponsored terrorism around the world, said Joshua Stanton, a lawyer in Washington who has helped Congress draft legislation related to sanctions on North Korea. |
| 曾帮助国会起草有关制裁朝鲜立法的华盛顿律师乔舒亚·斯坦顿说，这家人的律师似乎在使用这样一种策略：在朝鲜被扣押的资产被存入美国政府的一个基金之前，先向法院提出索赔，该基金是为了补偿世界各地国家支持的恐怖主义的受害者。 |
| As for the Warmbiers, he said, “They’re not in this for the money. They want justice.” |
| 至于瓦姆比尔一家，他说，“他们不是为了钱。他们要的是正义。” |
| A life of waiting |
| 一生的等待 |
| In South Korea, there is no system for giving financial support to victims of North Korean abductions during the Korean War, according to the country’s Ministry of Unification. A few plaintiffs have won judgments against North Korea in local courts, but were unable to collect money. |
| 据韩国统一部表示，韩国没有向朝鲜战争期间被绑架的受害者提供经济援助的制度。一些原告在当地法院赢得了对朝鲜的判决，但无法获得钱款。 |
| In one case, two former South Korean soldiers who had been taken to North Korea as prisoners of war in the 1950s sued the country in 2016, 15 years after escaping. The men, now 88 and 92, were each awarded about 21 million won, or $16,200, in damages. |
| 在一起案件中，两名在1950年代作为战俘被带到朝鲜的前韩国士兵在逃离朝鲜15年后，于2016年起诉了朝鲜。这两名男子现年88岁和92岁，分别获得了约2100万韩元（约合人民币10万元）的赔偿。 |
| In another case, Ms. Choi, the retired preschool teacher whose father, Choi Tae-jip, was abducted and brought to North Korea in 1950, won 50 million won in damages after suing North Korea. |
| 在另一起案件中，退休学前班教师崔女士起诉朝鲜，获得了5000万韩元的赔偿。她的父亲崔泰植（音）于1950年被绑架到朝鲜。 |
| The plaintiffs in both cases requested compensation from the Foundation of Inter-Korea Cooperation, a South Korean nonprofit that had collected two billion won, or about $1.5 million, in copyright royalties from South Korean media outlets that had used content in North Korea’s state-run news media. When the foundation refused to pay, arguing in a court that its royalties did not belong to the North Korean state, the plaintiffs sued. |
| 两起案件的原告都要求韩国非营利组织朝韩合作基金会提供补偿，该基金会曾经从使用朝鲜官方新闻媒体内容的韩国媒体收取了20亿韩元（约150万美元）的版权使用费。该基金会在法庭上以版税费不属于朝鲜政府为由拒绝支付，于是原告提起诉讼。 |
| A Seoul court dismissed the case filed by the former prisoners of war, saying the money did not belong to the North Korean state. Tae-seob Um, a lawyer who represents them, said in an interview that they planned to appeal. |
| 首尔一家法院驳回了两名战俘提起的诉讼，称这笔钱不属于朝鲜政府。代表他们的律师严泰燮（音）在接受采访时表示他们计划上诉。 |
| Ms. Choi, who was born Choi Sook-yi, has a court hearing in August. She said her father’s long absence had inflicted deep psychological wounds on her family. When her mother died in 1993, she had for decades been holding out a faint hope that her husband might miraculously return. |
| 原名崔淑仪（音）的崔女士将于8月出席庭审。她说父亲的长期缺席给她的家庭造成了深深的心理创伤。她的母亲几十年来一直抱着微弱的希望，期待丈夫奇迹般地归来，直至1993年去世。 |
| “If we had known that he had died, we would have grieved the loss and been done with it,” Ms. Choi said through tears in a quavering voice. “Instead, my mother lived a life of waiting.” |
| “如果我们知道他去世了，我们会为失去他感到悲痛，然后画上句号，”崔女士流着泪，用颤抖的声音说。“相反，我母亲一生都在等待。” |
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