Damning UN consensus building on North Korean rights abuses

Special to WorldTribune.com

By John J. Metzler

UNITED NATIONS A growing global wave of criticism, concern and consternation continues as both the UN General Assembly and now the Security Council have firmly condemned North Koreas communist regime for human rights abuses to its own population.

The moves come amid widening, and overdue, international attention to the reprehensible and widespread human rights situation in the reclusive and quaintly titled Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).

First, the full General Assembly voted 116 in favor, 20 against, and 53 abstentions to a tough but non-binding resolution calling on the international community to improve human rights in the DPRK. Then, for the first time ever, the Security Council met specifically to cover North Koreas human rights abuses.

The testimonies of survivors of North Korean concentration camps have provided damning evidence of a totalitarian regimes widespread abuses.

The Security Council move marked a landmark human rights action called for over a decade ago here at the UN by former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel.

With todays historic debate the UN finally sends the message that North Korean rulers who starve and enslave their own people must be held accountable, opined Hillel Neuer of the Geneva-based UN Watch, a human rights advocate group.

Importantly as American Ambassador Samantha Power stated, Today we have broken the Councils silence. We have begun to shine a light, and what it has revealed is terrifying. We must continue to shine that light, for as long as these abuses persist.

Given the Security Councils consideration of crimes against humanity, theres a growing possibility that members of the Kim Jong-Un regime may be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

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Damning UN consensus building on North Korean rights abuses