Barrister Muhammad Muzahidul Islam :
Human rights records of North Korea say that authoritarian regimes of this country have always been ignorant of the basic needs and rights of their people.
Excusing the state sovereignty and bypassing democracy and basic needs and rights, they conducted missile and other activities posing a threat to international peace and security.
There are allegations and findings that gross human rights abuses were committed in this country. And the allegations continue. Do the human rights abuses in North Korea come within the mandate of the UN Security Council?
We know that the Security Council has 15 members. It is tasked with the mandate of the maintenance of international peace and security. It has the power to impose sanctions (Article 41, UN Charter) and can authorize the use of force (Article 42, UN Charter) to restore international peace and security.
I would like to share with you an important meeting of the UN Security Council (9653rd Meeting (AM), SC/15726, 12 June 2024) where North Korea’s human rights issues were discussed.
According to UN Press (9653RD MEETING (AM), SC/15726, 12 June 2024) “At the outset of the meeting, the representatives of China and the Russian Federation opposed discussing human rights in the Council, calling for a vote to block its proceeding. However, their motion was defeated by most members”.
I would like to share with you the remarks of the briefers, and I quote it from the said UN Press – “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea invests most of its efforts into developing its military power, ignoring the State’s responsibility to allow its people to live full lives, a defector from that country told the Security Council today, stating that he wanted to become his country’s diplomat before discovering its “horrific truth”.
“I realized that the Kim family that I had wanted to serve were not my heroes, but dictators denying countless people’s freedom just to build their own power,” said Gumhyok Kim, civil society representative, who spoke “on behalf of millions of North Koreans who are denied humankind’s most basic freedoms”.
While studying abroad in Beijing, he said, a group of students from his country decided to share this newfound knowledge about his homeland and were persuaded that “if everyone knew the truth, North Korea would have to change”.
However, in 2011, the group was discovered by his country’s authorities, forcing him to flee to the Republic of Korea. “The painful fact that I was the only one to survive and reach freedom torments me to this day,” he said.
“If they developed the economy instead of missiles, there would be no need for any North Koreans to starve to death,” he observed, pointing out that “if North Korea were a normal State, it would contribute to world peace rather than threatening it”. He then appealed to the international community: “Please stand on the side of the North Korean people, not the dictatorship”.
UN Press states that “Also briefing the Council was Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who welcomed the Council’s attention to the precarious human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the interconnections between human rights, development, and peace and security.
“It is not possible to divorce the state of human rights in the DPRK from considerations around peace and security in the [Korean] Peninsula,” he said, citing the increasing militarization of that country.
Underscoring the tragic issue of enforced disappearance both inside the country and of citizens of other countries, notably the Republic of Korea and Japan, perpetrated over the past 70 years, he said the full truth about the fate of these people, estimated to be over 100,000, remains unknown.
“I again call on the DPRK to comply with its international obligations to return these individuals to their long-suffering families or reveal their fate and return remains to loved ones,” he said.
UN Press further states that “For her part, Elizabeth Salmón, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, highlighted the introduction of new laws that have death penalty provisions for minor crimes, such as “speaking or writing in the style of the so-called ‘puppet State’,” a reference to the Republic of Korea.
“We need to act,” she underscored, noting that the unwillingness or inability of the country to fulfil its duty to protect its people’s human rights must trigger the obligation of other States to act.
“The lack of respect for the rule of law in the country has persisted for too long,” she said, urging the Council to discuss expedient accountability measures, including referring the situation to the International Criminal Court”.
“Following the remarks by the three briefers, Council members exchanged views on how human rights violations in that country threaten international peace and security. Many expressed grave concerns about Pyongyang’s pursuit of its programmes to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at the cost of ordinary people’s basic human rights”.
Finally, I would conclude by quoting from the said UN Press a relevant portion of the remarks of the representative of the United States – “As found in a landmark report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry a decade ago, the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had committed systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations.
The report also recommended that the Council receive regular briefings on that country’s human rights abuses and violations as a threat to international peace and security, she said.”
(The writer is a human rights activist and an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh).