Cuba comes up with revision to proposed U.N. resolution on N.K. human rights

Cuba has come up with a revision to a proposed U.N. General Assembly resolution on North Korea's human rights record that drops a call for referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court, a source said Wednesday.

Cuba, which has friendly ties with North Korea, said that leaving in the part about North Korea's referral to the ICC could set a bad precedent for other developing nations, an argument seen as aimed at drawing support from Africa, according to the source.

Cuba plans to submit the revision to the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, the source said.

If it is submitted, the committee will discuss whether to accept the amendment.

In the past, Cuba has also opposed the U.N. adopting a resolution on the human rights situations in individual nations. It has expressed opposition when the U.N. was adopting human rights resolutions not only on North Korea, but also Iran, Syria and Myanmar.

Other countries sympathetic to North Korea include China, Russia and Venezuela.

The U.N. General Assembly has adopted a North Korean human rights resolution every year since 2005. But this year's proposal drew greater attention because of its call for North Korea's referral to the international court.

North Korea has struggled to tone down the resolution, offering to invite the special U.N. human rights investigator to visit the country in exchange for the envisioned resolution dropping any mention of referring the issue to the ICC.

North Korea has long been labeled as one of the worst human rights violators in the world. The communist regime does not tolerate dissent, holds hundreds of thousands of people in political prison camps and keeps tight control over outside information.

But the North has bristled at any talk of its human rights record, calling it a U.S. plot to topple its regime. (Yonhap)