Kim Yo Jong threatened last week that North Korea will shoot down U.S. spy planes if they enter the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Her warnings harkened back to the DPRK’s downing of an American reconnaissance plane in April 1969, which North Korea claimed flew into its EEZ, and 2003 interception of another US. spy plane that escaped unscathed.

A closer examination of international law reveals that the DPRK is one of a small number of countries that object to military vessels or planes entering their EEZs, even if just for reconnaissance. And North Korea and