From Australia to North Korea to Burma: a lesson Thailand should learn.

Byline: The Nation.

AUSTRALIA recently hosted the 9th International Conference on Human Rights in North Korea. The meeting was addressed by Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and was organised by Michael Danby, the Melbourne MP who is the most outspoken advocate for international human rights in the Australian Parliament. Thus, Australia seems poised to play a larger role on the critical issue of North Korea, which poses such a dangerous threat to peace in East Asia and beyond. If it does, it would be the first major attempt by Australia to advance Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's concept of "creative middle-power diplomacy".

Rudd, who received a warm reception this week in Washington, actually visited North Korea as an opposition …