North Korea, Human Rights Abuses, and the United Nations
On Tuesday, November 11th, 2014, The Guardian reported that North Korea has stopped speaking with the European Union regarding their human rights record. North Korea was in dialogue with the EU, who is one of the key actors behind a United Nations resolution calling for North Korea to be taken to the International Criminal Court.
This resolution came following a United Nations report that highlighted gross human rights violations being committed by North Korean leaders within the country. The report compared actions by North Korea with those committed by the Nazi regime in Germany. As The Guardian explains, “The UN’s commission on human rights in North Korea, which gathered evidence for almost a year, including often harrowing testimony at public hearings worldwide, said there was compelling evidence of torture, execution and arbitrary imprisonment, deliberate starvation and an almost complete lack of free thought and belief.” In addition, the committee also warned Kim Jong-un that the ICC could be used as an avenue for the United Nations due to the human rights abuses under his regime in North Korea.
The North Korean UN leadership mission was quoted in The Guardian as saying that “[a]lthough we are not opposed to the dialogue and cooperation for promotion and protection of genuine human rights, we will strongly respond to any attempt to continuously abuse the human rights issues in sabotaging our system, to the last ditch…”.
This resolution is an important action given the information that has come out regarding human rights abuses in North Korea. Furthermore, it is key that the international community uses all tools at their disposal to hold leaderships accountable for human rights violations. The International Criminal Court has become an important tool in international relations, as it has a mandate that allows leaders to be held accountable for war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity.
Sovereignty is not an excuse to carry out crimes against civilians. The North Korean regime must be held accountable for their actions, and the UN resolution, is a start. Hopefully the North Korean regime will end their violations against civilians. It seems that even though North Korea ended talks, that they do not like the fact that the ICC reference is included in the resolution. In fact, “North Korean diplomats also recently met the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman, for the first time and signalled that they could allow him to visit Pyongyang if references to the criminal court were removed from the draft.” They have also suggested a willingness to work with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on issues of technical assistance that the OHCHR could provide.
I believe the statements regarding the ICC are quite telling, suggesting that North Korea understands the power that the International Criminal Court has with regards to notions of international human rights. I think this only shows the power of the ICC, and just how influential it is, given that it is only in its infancy as an international court.
