NK Human Rights Will Go Before UN General Assembly for First Time
This will be considerably harder for South Korea to abstain from without making its amorality conspicuous:
The UN General Assembly is likely to see a fresh resolution on human rights in North Korea during the 60th plenary session now under way in New York.
A South Korean official said Thursday EU countries were leading the way, with their resolution on human rights in North Korea adopted at the UN’s Human Rights Commission. “At this time there is a 50:50 chance” the resolution will pass, “but after next week, the outlines of what will take shape should become more apparent,” the official said. The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea Vitit Muntarbhorn, who was appointed in 2004, has already submitted his report to the assembly.
Since 2003, the 53-member UNHRC has passed annual resolutions condemning the North’s “severe, systematic and widespread violations of human rights,” but this would be the first time the issue is debated on the floor of the 199-country General Assembly.
The South Korean government abstained on all three resolutions citing the “special character” of inter-Korean relations and is expected to abstain in the General Assembly as well. “It would be impossible for us to ignore” the fact that a fifth round of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program is slated to start in November, the official said.
History will remember South Korea’s actions. There is a precedent for this sort of thing. Apparently, the South Korean government is worried (via Yonhap):
SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) — The South Korean government is concerned that the current session of the U.N. General Assembly may introduce a resolution denouncing North Korea’s human rights conditions, Foreign Ministry officials said Thursday.
. . . .Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. special rapporteur for North Korea, has recently sent to the committee a report on human rights conditions in the country.
“We cannot rule out the possibility of some countries pushing to adopt a resolution criticizing the North,” a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Let’s hope my country is one of them. Better yet, let’s hope that it begins to actually take in some refugees and fund the radio-drop program the North Korean Human Rights Act. Accusations of hypocrisy are starting to gain traction.
Pyongyang faces harsh international criticism for its human rights record, with activists drawing attention to the number of concentration camps allegedly used by the Kim Jong-il regime to detain, punish and even execute political prisoners.
. . . .South Korea has abstained from voting on U.N resolutions on the issue citing the “uniqueness” of its relations with North Korea. Seoul is concerned that its support of the resolution would anger the North and complicate burgeoning inter-Korean detente and multilateral efforts to resolve the standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons program. The ministry official said he cannot say how the government will act if the current U.N. session calls for a resolution this time. “I cannot comment on conditional issues,” he said.
Update: Ha! It would be funnier if it weren’t so close to the truth!