Two years after a UN Commission
of Inquiry recommended that the North Korean regime should be referred to
the International Criminal Court (ICC) on account of the egregious human rights
abuses underway in the country, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is calling
for the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations.
The UN Commission
of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea found that “the gravity, scale
and nature” of human rights violations in North Korea “reveal a State that does
not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”
Its report details crimes against
humanity including “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment,
rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political,
religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the
enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing
prolonged starvation.” Findings include that “there is an almost complete
denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as
the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association.” The
report concludes that such crimes against humanity are continuing “because the
policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain
in place.”
The Commission of Inquiry recommended
targeted sanctions against the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, an
extension of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North
Korea and the establishment of a UN-mandated structure and database “to help to
ensure accountability for human rights violations,” building on “the collection
of evidence and documentation work of the commission”. It also called on China
to respect the principle of non-refoulement and end its practice of forcibly
repatriating North Korean refugees.
On 22 January, the UN Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea (DPRK), Marzuki Darusman, said:
“In addition to continuing political pressure to exhort the DPRK to improve
human rights, it is also now imperative to pursue criminal responsibility of
the DPRK leadership. Not much has changed in the country almost two years after
the report of the Commission of Inquiry,”
His comments
follow a UN General Assembly resolution on 17 December 2015 condemning
“long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human
rights” in North Korea and a UN Security Council debate on 10 December 2015, in
which several countries voiced support for a debate on referring North Korea to
the ICC.
A European
Parliament resolution on 21 January stressed that “the violations described
in the [Commission of Inquiry] report, many of which constitute crimes against
humanity, have been taking place for far too long under the observing eyes of
the international community” and urged “the DPRK Government to implement the
recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry without delay.” On the same day, in
a short
debate in the House of Lords on “The security and human rights challenges
on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea’s recent nuclear test” Lord Alton
of Liverpool described the publications of the Commission’s report as “a
defining moment”, adding that North Korea “is in breach of pretty well all of
the 30 articles in the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights.”
CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas
said, “Two years on from the publication of the Commission’s report, action on
its recommendation is long-overdue. The report makes a comprehensive, detailed
and authoritative case for the North Korean regime to be brought to justice for
the appalling human rights violations underway in the country. It must not be
left to gather dust on a shelf but must
serve as a plan of action to end the suffering of the North Korean people and
hold the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to account. The resolutions
and debates in the UN, European and UK parliaments show that the world is aware
of the human rights crisis in North Korea. This is not enough. We must ensure
that those responsible are held to account in the ICC.”