This week, the United Nations General Assembly met for its first-ever public high-level session devoted to North Korea’s human rights situation. The meeting highlighted Pyongyang’s brutal repression of its citizens as a driver of global insecurity.
North Korean escapees Kim Eun Ju and Kang Gyu Li described the dehumanizing abuse and hunger they suffered inside North Korea. Eun Ju talked about watching her father die of starvation knowing the government was directing massive resources to the military. She also spoke of the hardships faced by North Korean soldiers sent to fight for Russia in Ukraine. Gyu Li spoke for the millions of North Koreans “deprived of fundamental rights,” recalling three friends who were executed for sharing South Korean television dramas. North Korea’s delegate at the General Assembly dismissed the escapees’ accounts.
UN Assistant Secretary-General Ilze Brands Kehris said that the human rights situation in North Korea “not only remains of dire concern but in many aspects is worsening.”
A civil society coalition representing 300 groups highlighted the connection between North Korea’s repression and its military production. The government engages in forced labor, cybertheft, illicit arms sales, and transnational crimes to finance its nuclear weapons and other military programs.
Delegates from the European Union, South Korea, Japan, the United States, Ukraine, and from Latin America and Africa described North Korea’s abuses as a threat to international peace and security. Ukraine’s delegate warned that North Korean weapons were “destroying civilian infrastructure and killing civilians” on its soil.
North Korea and its allies, including Cuba, Russia, and China, objected to the session taking place at all.
With the UN Security Council deadlocked due to Chinese and Russian vetoes, it’s up to the General Assembly to take action on North Korea. Sean Chung from HanVoice, Greg Scarlatoiu from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and Human Rights Watch called for the assembly to establish a standing independent body to investigate the links between rights abuses and North Korea’s military programs and illicit finances.
Such a body should include experts on human rights, humanitarian issues, nonproliferation, cybercrimes, transnational repression, and sanctions experts. Not only could such a body help deter future violations, it could also ensure any future diplomatic process addresses rights and security together, instead of separating them.
The meeting was a valuable opportunity to demonstrate the link between protecting the rights of North Koreans and safeguarding global security. The UN should seize the moment.