The Third Committee of the U.N. General
Assembly has passed a resolution on human rights in North Korea and called on the
U.N. Security Council to hold those responsible accountable for the abuses.
On November 18th, the resolution, a joint effort by more than
60 nations, passed 111-19, with 55 abstentions. North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria,
and China were among the countries who voted down the draft.
The non-binding measure will come up for a
vote by the General Assembly in December, at which time the same results are expected: to date, no resolution passed by the Third Committee has been rejected at the U.N.
General Assembly.
If passed at the plenary session, it will
be the 10th resolution on human rights in North Korea adopted since 2005.
However, previous resolutions pertaining to
North Korean human rights did not include a referral to the International
Criminal Court [ICC] for crimes against humanity–a move indicating more pressure and stringent recommendations to come in the future.
The resolution offers detailed evidence of
the systematic and widespread human rights violations in the North: torture,
public executions, rape, and forced detentions are among items on a long list of the
atrocities. Based on findings from the Commission of Inquiry [COI] on North
Korea, the resolution links the abuses to North Korea’s leadership and calls
for its accountability in the matter. Imposing targeted sanctions on those responsible is also among the resolution’s recommendations.
North has vehemently opposed the ICC
referral stipulated in the draft resolution. Cuba’s amendment to remove the clause for North Korea’s referral to the ICC was also voted down in the same
session.
“This resolution is replete with groundless
slander and U.S. hostile policies on North Korea are behind it,” Choe Myung
Nam, a North Korean representative to the United Nations announced prior to the
vote. “ If this resolution passes, the consequences will be so grave that no
one could have predicted them,” he threatened.
Security Council approval for a referral of
North Korea to the ICC is improbable; China and Russia are both expected to
wield veto power to thwart it. However, the resolution is highly symbolic, and has succeeded in promulgating awareness of North Korea’s human rights violations throughout
the international community and increasing efforts to improve them.
