page_title: Human rights in North Korea
section_title: Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
hierarchical_section_title: Human rights in North Korea / Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
caption_attribution_description: English: The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on North Korea formally presented its report to the Human Rights Council March 17, 2014. The image shows the three commissioners: Michael Donald Kirby (Chair; Australia), Marzuki Darusman, (the existing Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK; Indonesia), and Sonja Biserko (Serbia).
context_page_description: Human rights in North Korea are extremely limited. Despite numerous rights being de jure guaranteed by the country's constitution, human rights groups such as Amnesty International and nations such as the United States have asserted that, in practice, there is no right to free speech, and the only media providers that are deemed legal are those operated by the government. According to reports from Amnesty International and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, by 2017 an estimated 200,000 prisoners were incarcerated in camps that are dedicated to political crimes, and subjected to forced labor, physical abuse, and execution.
  The North Korean government strictly monitors the activities of foreign visitors. Aid workers are subjected to considerable scrutiny and they are also excluded from places and regions which the government does not want them to enter. Since citizens cannot freely leave the country, it is mainly from stories of refugees and defectors that the nation's human rights record has been constructed.
context_section_description: On May 6, 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council announced the appointment of Michael Kirby of Australia, Sonja Biserko of Serbia, and Marzuki Darusman of Indonesia as members of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
  [The] commission of inquiry will investigate the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ... including the violation of the right to food, the violations associated with prison camps, torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrary detention, discrimination, violations of freedom of expression, violations of the right to life, violations of freedom of movement, and enforced disappearances, including in the form of abductions of nationals of other States, with a view to ensuring full accountability, in particular where these violations may amount to crimes against humanity.
  On August 20, 2013, the commission began five days of public hearings at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea receiving testimony from defectors, and on August 29, 2013, in Japan from relatives of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. North Korea describes the inquiry as "a political plot" and it has not given investigators access to the country. The UN panel interviewed witnesses in South Korea, Japan, and the UK, and it also conducted hearings in the U.S. on October 30 and 31, 2013. The commission said it has consistently asked North Korean representatives to take part in the public hearings and question witnesses.
  On February 17, 2014, the panel published its findings in a 400-page report. The commission accused the North Korean government of being involved in systemic, widespread and gross human rights violations. The panel chairman Michael Kirby described some acts by stating that they resembled those committed by the Nazis.
  In many instances, the violations of human rights found by the commission constitute crimes against humanity. These are not mere excesses of the State; they are essential components of a political system that has moved far from the ideals on which it claims to be founded. The gravity, scale and nature of these violations revealed a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.
  Roberta Cohen, joint chair of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said it was now up to the world community to take action to protect those persecuted and bring the perpetrators to justice. The DPRK rejected the findings. In a statement it said the commission was "a product of politicization of human rights on the part of the EU and Japan, in alliance with the US hostile policy." On November 18, 2014, the UN voted in favor of a draft resolution to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
caption: The Commission of Inquiry found evidence of systematic, gross and widespread human rights violations.
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