hankyoreh

a diplomat with North Korea’s permanent mission to the UN

The international community’s human rights pressures on North Korea reached a new level on Nov. 18 when the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee passed a stringent resolution on the issue. The resolution is a sure bet to pass the General Assembly next month, and it also looks certain to be discussed by the Security Council.

What sets this resolution apart from past ones is its recommendation that the UNSC refer North Korea’s human rights situations to the International Criminal Court (ICC). It directs the ICC to punish those most responsible for the “crimes against humanity” in North Korea. And one of them is the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un. China holds veto power, and it may not agree to a resolution on these terms in the UNSC. But their mere inclusion is certain to provoke a sensitive reaction from Pyongyang. Meanwhile, North Korea‘s deputy Director-General Choe Myong-nam hinted just before voting that his country could stage another nuclear test.

Pyongyang’s behavior flies in the face of international opinion. The UN has adopted resolutions on North Korean human rights every year since 2005, and none of them have had a practical effect. At the end of the day, it’s North Korea that brought the latest resolution on, and if it insists on flouting it, the human rights pressures are only going to intensify. Its claim is that the US is bringing up human rights in an attempt to topple its regime, but the facts tell a different story. Many countries want North Korea to take steps to improve its human rights situation, and are willing to offer suitable assistance if it shows signs of doing that. It’s in North Korea’s own future interests to accept this show of good will.

Meanwhile, Seoul’s role in things weighs ever larger. Rather than that letting the international human rights pressures flare up into conflict, the South Korean government needs to step up its efforts to encourage practical improvements in human rights for the North Korean people. And the first step it needs to take is to improve relations with Pyongyang. Without some basic level of trust, its genuine aims could end up twisted, and the very peace that human rights improvements depend on could be destroyed. It‘s also Seoul’s responsibility to make it less of a burden for Pyongyang to agree to international human rights dialogue. One good approach would be to cooperate more closely with European countries that don‘t have any direct interest in the nuclear issue or other concerns affecting the Korean Peninsula.

The issue of human rights in North Korea is closely intertwined with security issues. We see this with Pyongyang’s continued adoption of a “military-first” system whose very principles conflict with those rights. When North Korea does try to improve its human rights situation, the methods need to flexible and varied. That‘s why it’s so crucial for South Korea to play a constructive role.

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