UN adopts resolution on Pyongyang's human rights violations

The United Nations adopted the resolution on North Korea’s human rights for the 16th consecutive year to condemn the violations of human rights in the community regime and call for improvement on its human rights record. Following last year, however, South Korea opted out of the proposal to push for the resolution despite the series of incidents committed by Pyongyang this year including the killing of a South Korean fisheries official in the West Sea.

On Wednesday (local time), the Third Committee of the United Nations Assembly adopted the resolution through consensus without putting it to a vote at its New York headquarters. The United States, Japan, Germany, and Canada were some of the 58 nations that made a joint proposal for the resolution.

Seoul participated in the proposal between 2008 and 2018, but it has decided to shy away two years in a row. “A set of circumstances surrounding the Korean Peninsula were considered in a comprehensive manner,” said an official from the South Korean foreign ministry in a phone call with this newspaper.

With the resolution strongly condemning North Korea’s long-standing systemic violations of human rights, the United Nations urged the communist regime to make good on respecting human rights and freedom as well as unconditional discharging of political prisoners.

However, there was no specific mentioning of the incident in September when a fisheries official from South Korea was killed by the North Korean military in the West Sea. And the resolution added that the North’s response to COVID-19 must be in line with international human right laws and the resolutions of the UN Security Council.


Jae-Dong Yu jarrett@donga.com · Ji-Sun Choi aurinko@donga.com