By Yi Whan-woo
The government will set up an archive to record North Korea’s state-perpetrated human rights violations under an ordinance endorsed by the Cabinet, according to the Ministry of Unification, which was announced on Tuesday.
Under the ordinance for the North Korean Human Rights Law, the government will also begin a foundation to oversee and support projects aimed at improving Pyongyang’s dire human rights records. The law will take effect, Sunday.
Based on the law, the Park Geun-hye administration is expected to press North Korea’s Kim Jong-un regime harder in collaboration with the United States and Japan, which have been addressing North Korea’s human rights through their own sanctions against the North.
The ordinance had been awaiting the Cabinet approval after the National Assembly passed the related bill in March.
Rival parties passed the North Korean human rights bill more than a decade after it was first introduced in 2005.
“It is meaningful for the country to have its first archive at the governmental level to gather evidence on Pyongyang’s human rights records,” unification ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said. “The government will also be able to support advocates of North Korean human rights in a comprehensive and systematic manner through its foundation.”
The archive will be operated by the Ministry of Justice. It will receive data from a research center, which will be set up under the unification ministry to study the repressive state’s human rights conditions based on North Korean defectors’ testimonies.
The research center is likely to open on Sunday.
The justice ministry may use the data to refer leader Kim Jong-un and his aides to the International Criminal Court or file an independent suit against them if the two Koreas are united, according to government sources.
The North Korean human rights foundation will run under the unification ministry.
It will have 12 board members. Judges, prosecutors, civil servants and university professors who have served in their jobs for 10 years or more will qualify as candidates. Human rights activists with more than seven years of experience are also qualified.
The ruling Saenuri Party will choose five of the 12 members while the two largest opposition parties, Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) and People’s Party will pick the other five. The remaining two positions will be selected by the government.
The 12 members are likely to be selected soon.