UN Watch Statement
Item 4 Commission of Inquiry on DPRK
UNHRC 25th Session
Delivered by Min-Soo Roh
Thank you, Mr. President.
UN Watch commends the Commission of Inquiry for their important report today on the gross and systematic human rights violations in the DPRK, and we welcome its conclusions and recommendations.
The report describes unspeakable atrocities. In the political prison camps of the DPRK, the inmate population has been gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, rape, forced abortion and the killing of children. Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have perished in these camps over the past five decades.
Mr. President, we urge the United Nations to take urgent action, by adopting the measures recommended by the report.
In addition, one important and ongoing response from this Council ought to be increased and expanded investigation from the thematic special procedures.
For example, the report speaks in depth about widespread and grave violations of the right to food in the DPRK. The State and its leadership caused the death of at least hundreds of thousands of people and inflicted permanent physical and psychological injuries on those who survived.
In the highly centralized system of the DPRK, decisions relating to food, including its production and distribution, and the use of international food aid, are ultimately made by a small group of officials, who are not accountable to those affected by their decisions. The commission warns of the recurrence of mass starvation.
Accordingly, the rapporteur on the right to food ought to regularly report on the DPRK, as should all of the other relevant rapporteurs.
It should not be the case that rapporteurs refrain from reporting on countries that do not invite them. That only leads to the paradoxical result that the world is given the least amount of information about countries with the most to hide. Just as the commission did, rapporteurs can gather credible evidence by many ways other than visiting the country concerned.
Thank you, Mr. President.
