New | Britain, US push UN Security Council to hold first talks on North Korea human rights
North Korea allies China and Russia, as well as Chad, Nigeria and Argentina do not sign letter proposal
Ten of the 15 members of the UN Security Council pushed to put North Korea on the official agenda for the first time to discuss the reclusive country’s human rights situation.
The members urged the discussion in a letter presented on Friday to the council’s president.
Given that such a procedure needs endorsement from at least nine countries and is not subject to a veto by a permanent member, the council will likely convene a session to take up the topic, possibly in December, as requested in the letter.
Unlike its nuclear and missile programmes that have been a frequent topic at the council, North Korea’s human rights issue has never been formally taken up by the most powerful organ of the UN system empowered to impose sanctions.
The council has informally discussed Pyongyang’s rights situation, which does not leave any official record.
The latest proposal for an official agenda item by Australia, Britain, Chile, France, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, South Korea, Rwanda and the United States will most likely step up pressure on Pyongyang, which appears to have been agitated by a series of calls by UN bodies and Western countries to improve its human rights record.
“We think it is a bad idea. We do not want to provoke North Korea,” China’s Ambassador Liu Jieyi told Kyodo News about the letter’s proposal. “It is not the function of the council to look into issues of human rights, it is [the job of] the (UN) Human Rights Council.”
Among the 15 council members, China and Russia, allies of North Korea, as well as Chad, Nigeria and Argentina did not sign the letter.
The proposal comes on the heels of the adoption of a resolution by a UN General Assembly committee last month that denounced the North’s human rights record and urged the Security Council to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court.
Some members within the Security Council voiced the view that they should seek a resolution on ICC referral of North Korea. But such a motion does not appear to be in the offing with veto-wielding China having expressed opposition to the idea.
The letter signed by UN representatives of the ten council members says they are “deeply concerned” about the rights violations in light of a UN commission of inquiry that released an extensive report in February.
“These violations threaten to have a destabilizing impact on the region and the maintenance of international peace and security,” the letter says.
It asks Chad’s Ambassador Mahamat Zene Cherif, the rotating president of the council, to formally place it on the agenda as an item “as early as possible in the month in December”.
“It really does unlock the possibility for change with respect to the human rights situation in North Korea,” Param-Preet Singh, senior counsel for Human Rights Watch, said of the move by three-quarters of the council members.
There is pressure to move forward before the end of the year when the roster of the Security Council members will be reshuffled. Outgoing among the ten that signed the letter are Australia, which has led the initiative, as well as South Korea, Luxembourg and Rwanda.
Their replacements include Venezuela, which opposed the General Assembly resolution slamming North Korea’s rights situation, and Malaysia and Angola, both of which abstained in the resolution vote.
The ten signing nations also requested that a briefing be given by a senior official from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
