 |
|
The UN’s Third Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs
|
South Korea a co-sponsor for resolution since 2008
A North Korean human rights resolution criticizing North Korea for its handling of human rights and calling for an improvement of that issue was adopted by the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee on Nov. 15. In a meeting held at the UN Headquarters on Thursday, the Third Committee, which handles human rights at the UN, adopted the North Korean human rights resolution by consensus, without holding a vote. The same resolution is expected to be adopted when the UN General Assembly meets next month, marking the 14th consecutive year such a resolution has been adopted. Just as in previous years, the EU and Japanese delegations to the UN were instrumental in drafting the resolution. Since 2008, the South Korean government has been a co-sponsor of the North Korean human rights resolution, and once again it consented to adopting the resolution as one of 61 co-sponsors. “The South Korean government participated in the consensus as part of its fundamental support for working with the international community toward the meaningful improvement of North Koreans’ human rights,” South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced. Based on the judgment that there hasn’t been any particular progress on North Korean human rights, this year’s resolution largely reproduced the framework and language of last year’s resolution. The resolution said that serious, concerted and widespread human rights violations have occurred for a long time and are still occurring today. It also called for all concentration camps to be closed immediately, all political prisoners to be freed and those responsible for human rights violations to be investigated. Reflecting the mood for dialogue and negotiations with North Korea that has formed over the course of inter-Korean and North Korea-US summits, the resolution added language that welcomed the diplomatic efforts that are currently underway. The resolution also welcomed the resumption of reunions for the divided families in Aug. 2018 and the agreement during the inter-Korean summit in Sept. 2018 to strengthen humanitarian cooperation aimed at fundamentally resolving the divided family issue. During the meeting on Thursday, Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN, said that there were no human rights violations in North Korea and protested that these claims had been fabricated by a few defectors. Kim left the meeting before the resolution was adopted. By Park Min-hee, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
