Veto or not, a Security Council vote on N. Korean human rights is a victory

A draft U.N. General Assembly resolution, co-authored by EU and Japanese diplomats, may ask the Security Council “to refer North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to an international court” for his crimes against humanity, as documented extensively by a U.N. Commission of Inquiry.

A draft leaked to the press on October 9th called for “effective targeted sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible for crimes against humanity,” possibly including Kim Jong Un himself. The draft also recommended “reporting the country’s situation and its leaders to the International Criminal Court” at The Hague “for crimes against humanity.”

Negotiations over the text of the draft continue, and it remains subject to “change before it goes to a vote in the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on human rights.” Whatever text passes the Third Committee is expected to “be sent to the UN General Assembly in December.” Only then will it go to the Security Council, where it’s a foregone conclusion that China and Russia will veto any resolution worth passing.

The inevitability of a ChiCom veto, however, does not mean that the pursuit of a resolution is necessarily an exercise in futility, although it could certainly become one if civilized nations fail to agree on an alternative plan of action. The Editors of The Washington Post, who say that North Korea’s “malevolent system … should not be acceptable,” suggest one such plan:

Another course of action was suggested recently by 20 defectors from North Korea, including Shin Dong-hyuk, who escaped from the notorious Camp 14. The defectors asked the Swiss government in a letter to freeze any financial assets held by members of the North Korean regime in Swiss bank accounts. It is not known whether Mr. Kim and his cohorts have stashed fortunes there, but some news accounts have suggested as much. North Korea’s leaders have paid attention to efforts to cut off their source of lucre. An asset freeze would be another way to get their attention and send a message that they cannot escape accountability for their crimes. [Editorial, Washington Post]

As they say, great minds think alike. After all, if passing a Security Council resolution is really a solution, we’ve solved the North Korean nuclear crisis four times since 2006. To be sure, an ICC indictment would be a powerful symbol that would also have important diplomatic and economic consequences, but China and Russia are certain to ignore any resolution’s key provisions anyway. A more plausible objective is to mobilize civilized humanity to deny North Korea the means–particularly, the financial means–to commit crimes against humanity, and Chinese bankers have never been willing to risk their capital and market access for North Korea’s sake.

Roberta Cohen, Co-Chair of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, notes that Pyongyang’s infamy has already had some significant diplomatic consequences:

Pyongyang could hardly have failed to notice that its human rights record has begun to have impact on an array of governments it might need politically or for foreign investment and aid. In 2013, Mongolia’s President made the news by stating during a visit to Pyongyang that “no tyranny lasts forever” and arguing for linking the nature of “tyrannous governance to prospects for economic development.”[8] Japan has been holding up further economic concessions to North Korea until information is forthcoming about the fate of abducted Japanese citizens.[9] At a meeting of Security Council members in 2014, the Ambassador of France declared that his government did not have diplomatic relations with North Korea and didn’t intend to given the COI report, while the southern African state of Botswana terminated its relations with North Korea over the COI’s findings.[10] The world’s leading industrialized nations in the Group of 8 (now 7) for the first time urged North Korea to address international concerns about its human rights violations,[11] while the United States has made clear that overall relations with North Korea will not fundamentally improve without some change in human rights practices, including closing the prison labor camps.[12] And President Park Geun-hye of South Korea has agreed that her country will host the UN office to be established in order to continue the monitoring done by the COI into human rights in North Korea with a view to promote accountability. [Roberta Cohen, 38 North]

This diplomatic isolation has probably also dissuaded potential investors, who may see investment in North Korea as a big risk to their capital and their reputations, even with the backing of their country’s diplomats. The financial price of North Korea’s atrocities is rising.

Finally, if the objective of a General Assembly vote is to show the world that it has a North Korea problem, a Security Council vote could be just as useful to show the world that at its root, the North Korea problem is a China and Russia problem. The leaked drafts have further increased pressure on Russia and China for shielding Kim Jong Un, and all that is done in his name. That understanding could be a step toward consensus for effective action by civilized nations.

You may believe in the U.N., and you may be a skeptic, but whichever of those things you are, you must still acknowledge that for many governments and many people, a good-faith effort to act at the U.N. is a prerequisite to other forms of action. If nothing else, that effort is placing this issue before the eyes of the world.

The good news is that for the first time in North Korea’s history, its rulers face a real risk of accountability for murdering or starving to death more than two million of their own people. In the short term, this raises little or no direct legal risk to Kim Jong Un and his courtiers. In the long-term, a global deliberation on Kim Jong Un’s responsibility for crimes against humanity could unite the world in pressuring North Korea to discard its malevolence, or alternatively, until its malevolent system ceases to exist.

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Update: Justice Kirby says we should not assume that China would veto the resolution. I don’t know if he’s right or wrong, but the more Kirby talks about it, the greater the pressure on China.