Editor's note: this story was translated from the original VOA Korean article.
In the past, lawsuits against North Korea were primarily brought by Americans who had been detained or killed by North Korea, or by their families. More recently, however, individuals and companies who say they were harmed by North Korean weapons and military assistance provided overseas, as well as by cyberattacks, have also begun seeking to hold Pyongyang legally accountable.
Andrii Rachok was killed in a Russian attack in February 2024 while serving in the Ukrainian military. On January 2, 2026, four members of his family, all U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., against North Korea, Russia and Iran, seeking damages for Rachok's death.
The plaintiffs allege that mortars supplied by North Korea to Russia were used in the attack. They cited publicly available information indicating that North Korea had provided Russia with more than 12 million artillery rounds, including mortar rounds.
Similar lawsuits have also been filed in relation to attacks in the Middle East.
In September, a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia ordered North Korea and Iran to pay approximately $487 million in damages in a lawsuit brought by 47 Americans, including victims and family members affected by seven terrorist attacks in Iraq, Syria, Kenya and Israel.
The court accepted the plaintiffs' claims that North Korea had provided weapons, military training and tunnel-building assistance to Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah and found a legal connection between that material support and the resulting harm.
“So not only did they sell that stuff to Iran, they sold it to Iran knowing that at least some of those weapons would be used to be proliferated to terrorist groups,” Bruce Bechtol, a professor at Angelo State University who has studied North Korea's military activities in the Middle East, told VOA.
In another case, victims and family members of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel filed a motion for a default judgment in July against North Korea, Iran and Syria.
The plaintiffs allege that North Korea provided Hamas with weapons, military training and weapons-manufacturing technology, and assisted in the construction of military tunnels in the Gaza Strip.
At the time, plaintiffs' attorney Aryeh S. Portnoy said the victims should have an opportunity to tell their own stories in court about what they endured and the devastating impact the terrorists and their state sponsors caused.
The plaintiffs in these cases have also expanded beyond individuals and families.
In June, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., against the North Korean government, North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau and the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group.
Bybit filed the lawsuit seeking to recover approximately $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency stolen in a February 2025 hack. The court subsequently took measures to prevent the transfer of the stolen assets.
U.S. court rulings have ordered North Korea to pay nearly $5 billion in damages in cases brought against the country, according to a VOA review of judgments made public by U.S. courts. More than $1.2 billion of that amount was awarded in cases decided over roughly the past year.
Many of the lawsuits are brought under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act or FSIA.
U.S. law generally limits civil lawsuits against foreign governments. But it provides an exception for countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, allowing victims to seek damages if certain legal requirements are met.
North Korea was removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2008 but was redesignated in 2017.
There is, however, a difference between winning a damages judgment in a U.S. court and actually collecting the money. Because North Korea does not voluntarily pay such judgments, plaintiffs must identify North Korean-linked assets in the United States or abroad and seek to enforce the judgment against those assets.
A prominent example is the case involving Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was detained in North Korea and later died.
Warmbier's parents obtained just over a $500 million judgment against North Korea in 2018 and have since sought North Korean-linked frozen assets to enforce the judgment.
Most recently, Warmbier's parents have asked a court to turn over approximately $2.4 million in frozen assets currently held by the New York State Comptroller.
The court has determined that the funds were assets of Iran's Bank Sepah, which it found to be an agency or instrumentality of North Korea at the time the funds were blocked, and has issued a writ of execution covering the funds.
The assets Warmbier's family is seeking to recover have expanded beyond funds held directly in the name of the North Korean government to include overseas assets linked to North Korea's nuclear proliferation activities.
In June, a U.S. court also ordered $17 million in frozen assets to be paid to Warmbier's parents that were linked to the nuclear proliferation network of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, commonly known as A.Q. Khan.
Warmbier's parents sought to recover the money, arguing that the funds had flowed to North Korea. The court determined that the A.Q. Khan network acted as an agent of North Korea and was the entity that transferred the funds.