UN to Train North Korean Lawyers

The Associated Press reported on November 12 that two legal experts from the UN will visit North Korea to hold training sessions for North Korean lawyers over various UN conventions and ways to deal with refugees and denationalized persons.

The training sessions will be held for 30 to 40 North Korean lawyers from November 16 to November 19 and will include extensive training and discussions over participation in international conventions, deliberation of convention drafts, and the rights and liabilities of agreement parties.

“This is the first time that UN legal experts have ever been invited to the North genuinely for legal discussions,” said Palitha Kohona, the chief of the UN Treaty Section in the UN office of Legal Affairs who will be arriving in Pyongyang on November 15, along with Christoph Bierwith from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The training deal was struck at the request of North Korea, which has recently been inviting a series of UN delegations to the country in an effort to seek advice regarding international treaties and other issues related to refugees and denationalized persons. Next May, a seminar on the Law of International Treaty will also be held in New York with four North Koreans in attendance.

All eyes are on North Korea’s education in UN law, as it will be held at a time when China is sending the North Korean defectors who have been covered in the media recently to South Korea in violation of its agreement with the North, and the number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South reached 1,900 last year.

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