UN council adopts North Korean human rights resolution

The resolution co-sponsored by South Korea condemns North Korea’s long-standing and ongoing systemic, widespread gross human rights violation.

A general view shows a United Nations Security Council meeting on non-proliferation and the DPRK, or North Korea, at the United Nations headquarters in New York on March 20. [YONHAP]

The UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday adopted a resolution co-sponsored by South Korea that condemns North Korea’s long-standing and ongoing systemic, widespread gross human rights violations.

The resolution was drafted by Sweden on behalf of the European Union.

It was the first time in four years that South Korea co-sponsored a resolution condemning Pyongyang’s human rights violations.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council has annually adopted a resolution condemning North Korea’s human rights violation since 2003, and Seoul was a co-sponsor of the resolution from 2008 to 2018.

However, it stopped under the liberal Moon Jae-in administration since 2019.

Recently, the Yoon Suk Yeol government has been increasing pressure against North Korea’s human rights violations including making the Unification Ministry’s North Korean human rights report public for the first time.

While the report was published every year since 2017, it was never made public.

The latest report based on witness accounts of 508 North Korean defectors included a 6-month old pregnant woman executed in 2017 after a video spread showing her dancing in her home and pointing a finger at a portrait of the regime founder Kim Il Sung.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]