Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
The Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the landmark document resulting from the investigations on human rights in North Korea commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013 and concluded in 2014. The report unequivocally concluded that the North Korean government systematically violated human rights including freedom of thought, expression and religion; freedom from discrimination; freedom of movement and residence; and the right to food. The Commission further determined  that North Korea had committed crimes against humanity and manifestly failed to uphold its responsibility to protect. These crimes entail "extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation". Based on the findings in the report, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 69/188 in 2014 condemning human rights abuses and urging the UN Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). That same year, and for  the first time, the Security Council convened to address human rights in North Korea, but no resolution was adopted. History. Background. With mounting evidence of human rights abuses in North Korea documented by NGOs and governments during the preceding three decades, since 2003 the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) have repeatedly passed resolutions expressing their concerns about the violations of human rights in North Korea. The UN Commission on Human Rights (the predecessor of the HRC) established the mandate for the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea in 2004, issuing  reports annually. North Korea did not cooperate with this mandate. In addition, in 2009, the North Korean government was the first state to not accept any of the 167 recommendations received from the adoption of its first Universal Periodic Review (a review on human rights conducted by the HRC on all UN members). Both the Special Rapporteur and the UN human rights commissioner denounced grave violations, with the latter saying that the situation in the DPRK was "the worst in the whole world". Before the HRC established the commission of inquiry, the Security Council unanimously approved resolution 2094 reinforcing sanctions  against the North Korean regime in retaliation for having conducted a third nuclear test a month earlier. Need for a full-fledged inquiry. The special rapporteurs, working with one single assistant, had conveyed in their annual reports "the need for the establishment of an inquiry mechanism with adequate resources" that "could produce a more complete picture, quantify and qualify the violations in terms of international law, attribute responsibility to particular actors or perpetrators of these violations and suggest effective courses of international action.” This need was echoed in 2012 by 179 North Korean defectors who wrote to foreign ministers of  many countries urging them to establish a commission of inquiry. Over 40 human rights organizations (under the banner of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea) and legislators around the world backed the idea. The intent was to broaden the international spotlight on North Korea's nuclear program to human rights. The Commission. Mandate. On 21 March 2013, the UN's 47-nation Human Rights Council established the Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Human Rights in the DPRK with resolution 22/13. No HRC member required the decision be submitted to a vote, making it the first  time a resolution to create a commission was adopted without any opposition. The resolution was sponsored by the European Union and Japan and backed by the United States. With no Chinese or Russian vote on the Council at the time, North Korea lacked an ally willing to oppose the inquiry. The COI was made up of a panel of three unpaid experts: Michael Kirby (Chair; Australia), Marzuki Darusman (the existing Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK; Indonesia), and Sonja Biserko (Serbia). The panel was supported by a secretariat of nine human rights officials provided by  the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Commission's mandate was to investigate the "systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the DPRK" including, in particular, violations in nine specific substantive areas: 1) right to food; 2) prison camps; 3) torture and inhuman treatment; 4) arbitrary arrest and detention; 5) discrimination in basic human rights and fundamental freedoms; 6) freedom of expression; 7) right to life; 8) freedom of individual movement; and 9) enforced disappearances and abductions of nationals of other states. The mandate indicated the inquiry should pursue three inter-linked objectives: investigate in depth human rights  violations; document witness accounts; and ensure accountability especially for crimes against humanity. Outcome. The Commission's report was made public on 7 February 2014. It was described as the most authoritative assessment of human rights in North Korea, and said to shift international focus on North Korea from nuclear issues to human rights. The Commission concluded that the North Korean government was perpetrating "unspeakable atrocities" against its own people on a vast scale and committing "widespread, systematic and gross" violations of human rights that amounted to crimes against humanity. The Chair of the Commission called these atrocities "strikingly similar" to  crimes committed by Nazi Germany in World War II. Crimes included execution, enslavement, starvation, rape and forced abortion. Based on the COI findings, on 26 March 2014 the HRC passed a resolution (30 in favor, 6 against, 11 abstentions) urging the General Assembly to refer the findings to the Security Council and for the Security Council to take action, including referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC). On 17 April 2014 members of the Security Council convened an informal meeting to hear the panel's views on what should be done next. This was an unusually expeditious gathering and the  first one to address human rights in North Korea. China and Russia did not attend. On 18 December 2014 the General Assembly passed several resolutions (including 69/188; 116 in favor, 20 against, 53 abstentions) condemning the state-sponsored human rights abuses in the country and urging the Security Council to refer the report to the ICC. On 22 December 2014, the Security Council held a meeting to evaluate the commission's report, its first official meeting to discuss human rights in DPRK. China objected to the meeting, which led to an unusual procedural vote, the first in eight years, on  whether the meeting should be held. Only Russia agreed with China. Despite these objections, the meeting was held, because procedural votes do not allow for vetoes. However, China would be able to use its veto power to block a decision to refer the report to the ICC, making it very unlikely that such a resolution would pass. In December 2015, the U.S. added "human rights abuses in North Korea" to the permanent UNSC agenda, making the subject a recurring item of discussion from that point forward. China again protested (along with Angola, Russia, and Venezuela) the proposal, asserting that human  rights is not a topic to be discussed at the UNSC, called for a procedure vote but lost it. Also in December 2015, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called on the UNSC to refer DPRK to the ICC. In 2017, UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to authorize the use of criminal justice experts to devise legal strategies for eventual prosecutions of violations by North Korea. It also authorized the creation of a central repository for evidence to be used in such prosecutions. Actual prosecution remains uncertain. Summary of report findings. Crimes against  humanity. The report stated that crimes against humanity in North Korea do “not have any parallel in the contemporary world” and arise directly out of “policies established at the highest level of State.” The report was the first one by the United Nations to determine that crimes against humanity were perpetrated in the DPRK. Talking about these crimes, the Chair of the COI stated: "Unlike earlier totalitarian states and oppressive conduct, the world cannot now lament, 'if only we had known...' Now, the world does know. And the question is whether the world will respond effectively and take the  necessary action." The question of genocide. According to the Commission's findings, hundreds of thousands of inmates have been exterminated in political prison camps and other places over a span of more than five decades. In the course of three generations, entire groups of people, including families with their children, have perished in the prison camps because of who they were and not for what they had personally done. The Commission noted that the notion of the DPRK eliminating an entire class of people by deliberately creating the conditions that lead to massive deaths can be seen as akin to  genocide. However, extermination on the sole basis of political affiliations is not included in the contemporary definition of genocide under international law. The Commission decided instead to emphasize that crimes against humanity, in their own right, are crimes of such gravity that they not only trigger the responsibility of the state concerned, but also that of the international community to uphold its responsibility to protect the population of the DPRK. Accountability. The prohibition of crimes against humanity forms part of the body of peremptory norms ("jus cogens") that bind the entire international community as a matter of customary international law . Individuals who commit crimes against humanity in the DPRK may, therefore, be held responsible, even though the DPRK has not yet included crimes against humanity in its domestic criminal law and is not a State party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The fact that perpetrators of these crimes have acted on superior orders does not relieve them of criminal responsibility. The Commission's report identified individuals and institutions that must be held accountable, including the Supreme Leader, State Security Department, Ministry of People's Security, Office of the Prosecutor and the court system, Korean People's  Army, Workers' Party of Korea, and the National Defence Commission. The COI recommended the international community act, outlining three main options: Methodology and challenges. The panel conducted its investigations throughout several months, relying on first-hand witnesses and victims as the primary source of information. Eighty escapees, refugees, and abductees publicly testified, and 240 more were interviewed confidentially to protect them or their families from retaliation by North Korea. Interviews were conducted during visits to Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok, London, and Washington, D.C., and through videoconferences and telephone calls. A wealth of other reports and written materials prepared by the UN , NGOs, governments, research institutes, and academics were used for context and corroboration. Historical official documents released from former Soviet countries (including archival records from the USSR) and leaked records from China and DPRK also fed into the commission's research. The Commission also relied on commercially available satellite images of prison camps, as well as clandestinely recorded videos and photographs with confirmed authenticity. The Commission stated in its report its awareness that most victims and witnesses cooperating with the Commission had an overall unfavorable opinion of the DPRK's authorities. To ensure balance, the Commission repeatedly invited the DPRK to  provide information, but it always refused. In the absence of direct input by the DPRK, the commission reviewed documentation previously published by the DPRK. The report also noted that Chinese leaders refused to let the commission visit China's border provinces with North Korea and opposed the Commission's inquiry from the start. The Commission sent a letter to the Chinese government suggesting that they were “aiding and abetting crimes against humanity.” The determination of facts was based on the “reasonable grounds” standard of proof, with all facts independently corroborated by at least one other credible source of information. The  Commission relied chiefly on the binding legal obligations that the country voluntarily assumed as a State party to the: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Convention on the Rights of the Child; and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Commission also relied on other international and customary law, including international humanitarian law. North Korea's reactions. After the adoption of HRC resolution 22/13, the DPRK publicly stated that it would “totally reject and disregard” the resolution, which it considered to be a “product of political  confrontation and conspiracy”. Immediately after the Commission was created, the North Korean Ambassador to the UN, So Se Pyong, denounced the Commission as “an instrument that serves the political purposes of the hostile forces in their attempt to discredit the image” of North Korea, while denying that any human rights abuses existed in his country. The panel submitted several requests seeking the cooperation of North Korea. The Commission invited the government to scrutinize its work, share information, and provide proof to support its claim that human rights are protected. One request included sending a letter to the country's leader  Kim Jong-un. All requests were denied or went unanswered. North Korea's blanket rejection also included denying access to the country (since 2004 the Special Rapporteur had also been denied entry). Throughout the process, North Korean officials dismissed the Commission, describing it and its results as “a political conspiracy by the United States and hostile forces,” with its participating witnesses being criminals and "human scum." The DPRK asserted that the evidence cited by the panel had been “fabricated and invented,” and dismissed the Commission as “a hotbed of confrontation and distrust.” North Korean officials stated that there were "no  prison camps" operating in North Korea but that there were "detention centres where people are improved through their mentality and look on their wrongdoings." Officials also stated that North Korea was a "transition society" and as such "there might be some problems, for example in the economic and other areas, we may need to establish more houses and social facilities in order to provide people with better living conditions." Several months after the release of the panel's report, North Korea released its own human rights report. The five-chapter report was prepared by the DPRK's Association for Human  Rights Studies “to lay bare the false and reactionary nature of the reckless anti-North Korean human rights racket and to wipe out the prejudice and misunderstanding.” The report claims that North Koreans enjoy robust human rights, including freedom of speech and religion and protection from slavery and torture. The report did not mention the prison gulags, which witnesses to the Commission had described in detail. North Korea also countered accusation of wrongdoing by issuing its own analysis on the human rights situation in the United States and South Korea. Shortly after the publication of the COI report, the pressure  on the DPRK mounted. The UN General Assembly considered passing a resolution that threatened to bring the leadership of the DPRK to an international tribunal. Also, several governments were reassessing their relationships to the country given the findings of the report and reduced their shipments of aid. This pressure during mid and late 2014 led North Korea to change its stance, with its Foreign Minister going to the General Assembly for the first time in 15 years. There he announced the DPRK's readiness to hold a “human rights dialogue with countries not hostile to it.” Also following the publication  of the COI report, in May 2014, on the eve of the second Universal Periodic Review report on human rights in North Korea, the DPRK published (three years behind the UN scheduled deadline) a detailed response to the 167 first cycle recommendations. The government changed its previous stance of complete rejection of external critique on its human rights, accepting a large part of the recommendations and claiming they were being implemented. Shortly after, during the second cycle of the UPR, 268 recommendations were issued to advance the DPRK's human rights. The DPRK again accepted some of them. However, in  both instances, it excluded from consideration or redress the most serious violations, including those deemed by the COI to have crossed “the high threshold of crimes against humanity.” Despite the DPRK's claims of progress, in June 2014, Special Rapporteur Darusman noted that no recommendations were being implemented. After the UN General Assembly in December 2014 referred the Commission's findings to the Security Council, Pyongyang renounced any further cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms. Other subsequent events. The UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in 2014. The vote allowed Darusman to pick up where  the Commission left off a month prior. It also called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a “field presence” in the country by assigning permanent staff to monitor human rights developments. The office was opened on 23 June 2015. The DPRK reacted by strongly protesting the establishment of such office, and threatening the UN staff there to be “ruthlessly punished”. In January 2015, Shin Dong-hyuk, a vocal and prominent defector, recanted key parts of a life story that had made him the best-known symbol of torture and other rights violations by North  Korea. His retractions came amid mounting pressure from fellow North Korean escapees and the South Korean news media to clarify suspicions about his background. The UN and human rights advocates maintained that the report remained solid, even without Shin's account as the report drew from interviews with hundreds of other defectors and experts on human rights in North Korea. Before Shin's recantation, in 2013, "The New York Times" had noted that Shin's accounts were "dramatic, but not particularly new; over the years, defectors from North Korea, including a handful of survivors of its prison camps like Mr.  Shin, have told similar stories." In 2016, British scholar, Hazel Smith, described the report's description of ongoing starvation in North Korea as "erroneous". She stated that the situation had greatly improved since the 1990s and was far from being unique around the world. UN documents. Commission's report The COI issued two versions of the report: a summary one of 36 pages and a detailed one of 372 pages. Related resolutions Security Council Meetings The United Nations has issued, and continues to issue other (less in-depth) periodical reports on the human rights situation in the DPRK. Below are  listed the reports that preceded or were contemporaneous to the Commission's report. These include the Universal Periodic Review (every 3 or 4 years) and annual reports by the Special Rapporteur, issued in detail to the Human Rights Council, and in a more condensed form to the General Assembly: