UN's draft proposal on NK human rights released

By Jun Ji-hye

The Third Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations on Wednesday published a draft proposal online concerning human rights in North Korea, including calls for referring the communist state to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

However, the proposal did not include specific names for referral to the ICC.

The eight-page draft, led by the European Union and Japan, expresses serious concerns over systematic and extensive violations of human rights perpetrated inside political prison camps located inside the isolated state, which reportedly includes forced abortions, torture of inmates and starvation. The North denies all such allegations.

The proposal also urged the U.N. Security Council to take appropriate steps to address the matter.

The Third Committee deals with a range of social, humanitarian affairs and human rights issues.

The committee is expected to pass the draft by Nov. 27 when its session ends. Once passed, it will be followed by a vote in the U.N. General Assembly.

However, adoption of the proposal by the General Assembly would not be legally binding, raising uncertainty about whether the U.N. Security Council will pursue it. China, a permanent member of the council, has been opposing the discussion of human rights in individual nations.

A day before the draft was released, Marzuki Darusman, the U.N. special rapporteur on North Korea’s human rights, also called for referring Pyongyang to the ICC to show that the international community takes the issue seriously.

“This would send an unequivocal signal that the international community is determined to take the follow-up to the work of the Commission of Inquiry on the DPRK (North Korea) to a new level,” said the special U.N. investigator during a presentation of his latest report to the U.N.

Darusman also urged the U.N. General Assembly to submit a U.N. Commission of Inquiry report to the U.N. Security Council for further action. That report, issued earlier this year, stated that the ICC should handle human rights abuses in the North as “crimes against humanity.”

His presentation came a day after he held the first-ever meeting with North Korean diplomats on the sidelines of a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. The meeting was held because Pyongyang officials had complained about calls, led by the European Union and Japan, to refer North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as responsible for violations of human rights to the ICC.

Darusman said that Pyongyang officials demanded that referral of Kim to the ICC be excluded from the draft. They also discussed the possibility of a visit by U.N. investigators to the reclusive state for on-the-spot inspections, he said.

The secretive state has refused to discuss human rights within its borders, claiming that discussion of the issue in the international community is a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.

Last month, the North released its own human rights report, claiming the country has the world's most advances human rights protections and policies.

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