The UN human rights head told the UN Security Council it is “essential” that the council refer North Korea’s bleak human rights situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a proposition that the reclusive nation views with alarm.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein spoke on Thursday after China tried to keep the meeting from happening.
China demanded a rare vote on whether to discuss the issue, saying the council is not the place to discuss human rights.
Photo: Reuters
Russia, Venezuela and Angola backed China, but the US and eight other nations voted to go forward. Nigeria and Chad abstained.
US Ambassador Samantha Power, the current council president, replied to the objections with: “Really?”
She called for an end to the practice of sending North Korean refugees back to their nation, where they can face imprisonment and torture.
The council put North Korea’s rights situation on its agenda a year ago and this was its second meeting on the issue. The council took up the issue after a UN report, based on interviews with scores of defectors, detailed widespread government abuses by Pyongyang, such as mass starvation.
The UN report also recommended a referral to the court, an idea that 112 countries supported last month in a vote in the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee.
The assembly itself is expected to vote on the non-binding resolution next week.
North Korea rejects criticism of its human rights record, but in September its minister of foreign affairs extended an unprecedented invitation to Zeid to visit the nation.
Zeid told reporters after Thursday’s meeting that he hopes to go to North Korea “in the near future” and that discussions on the details continue.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month that he will try to visit North Korea “at the earliest possible date” in an effort to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Zeid said on Thursday that “mine is a separate invitation.”
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