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Nearly a year after President Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, someone in his a administration has finally gotten around to denouncing the human rights record of a regime that carried out 901 known public executions in 2007 and holds roughly 200,000 men, women, and children in the most extensive gulag system on earth:

A U.S. envoy says that the human rights situation in North Korea must improve before the country can normalize relations with the United States. President Barack Obama’s special envoy on North Korean human rights Robert King is visiting South Korea this week to discuss the issue with government officials.

King said of North Korea, ”It’s one of the worst places in terms of lack of human rights. The situation is...