The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has released an important new report about North Korea’s human rights situation and OHCHR’s work in the past two years to promote justice for victims.
The report, based on extensive interviews with escapees, victims, and former officials, documents the government’s intensifying repression, worsening food security, and the authorities’ persistent use of forced labor, detention, and torture to maintain totalitarian rule. It also cites other recent OHCHR reports documenting abuses that amount to crimes against humanity.
The new report corroborates the findings of a recent Human Rights Watch report on the impacts of North Korea resealing its border between 2018 and 2023 and imposing strict new laws, policies, and punishments.
North Koreans quoted in the report who escaped the country before and during the Covid-19 pandemic told UN investigators of widespread food scarcity and hunger. Some people who had previously been detained in the country’s prisons spoke of tiny food rations “not fit for human consumption.” These abuses and the country’s dire food situation are the results of the North Korean government’s actions and policies, including diversion of state resources towards its military and weapons programs.
The UN report calls for stronger international efforts to obtain justice for the government’s rights violations. North Korea denies almost all reports of rights abuses and is unlikely to ever investigate or prosecute its own misconduct.
The OHCHR recommends that the UN Security Council, however unlikely, refer North Korea’s situation to the International Criminal Court. It also urges countries to pursue alternative domestic legal avenues to prosecute North Korean government crimes, including universal jurisdiction and civil suits.
The report also calls on states to “ensure that efforts aimed at securing a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula give due priority to human rights.” This means ensuring that rights are part of any future negotiations about North Korea’s military policies and weapons programs. As several governments and UN officials have raised at the UN Human Rights Council, security issues and human rights abuses in North Korea are inexorably connected. Concerned governments should continue to underscore these connections and explore options for investigations. The Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly member states should ensure security and rights are discussed together in any future diplomatic meetings.
As the Human Rights Council prepares to discuss human rights in North Korea at its session in March, this report demonstrates why it is imperative that the council renew the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on North Korea and intensify its efforts to advance accountability. Sustained international pressure is essential to ensure North Korean government officials do not continue to evade accountability for serious abuses.