By Ankit Panda
For the first time, a UN General Assembly resolution on human rights in North Korea has called for an ICC referral.
The United Nations’ General Assembly’s human rights committee (HRC) voted Tuesday to request that the Security Council refer a case concerning North Korea’s human rights record to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution. 111 states voted in favor of the resolution, 19 voted against, and 55 abstained. The resolution recommends the prosecution of the North Korean leadership for crimes against humanity. While similar resolutions on human rights have come around in the past, this is the first time the General Assembly explicitly raised the issue of an ICC referral. The resolution will leave the human rights committee and head to the General Assembly plenary session for an additional vote in December.
The vote will likely cause North Korea to react with outrage and indignation. North Korea’s U.N. permanent representative Choe Myong-nam already denounced the resolution as a plot to sow instability in the country. According to Reuters, Choe added that “the outrageous and unreasonable human rights campaign staged by the United States and its followers in their attempts to eliminate the state and social system of (North Korea) is compelling us not to refrain any further from conducting nuclear tests.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat