By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

GENEVA, Switzerland– Following the UN General Assembly’s resolution heavily criticizing the human rights situation in North Korea last month, the Human Rights Council will conduct North Korea’s first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Monday.

Human Rights Watch is encouraging UN member states to put an end to the horrific human rights violations in North Korea at the upcoming UPR session.  Specifically, the organization has named executions, collective punishment and punishment of defectors among the human rights issues to be raised at the session.

In addition, Human Rights Watch has requested that Pyongyang allow international humanitarian agencies to monitor aid programs in North Korea to ensure transparency and accountability.

The organization has also asked that North Korean citizens be able to travel freely in and out of the country.  Human Rights Watch added that North Korea should stop punishing defectors who are forced to return.

Furthermore, the activist organization has stated that the North should ensure the rights of children set forth in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a treaty North Korea ratified.

North Korea’s Permanent Ambassador to the UN Pak Gil Yon.  Courtesy of Getty Images.

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said, “North Korea should take concrete measures to address human rights, not just pay lip service…The first step in that direction is participating in the UN system and inviting the UN rights experts to observe and advise.”

Moreover, North Korea routinely executes its citizens for stealing state property and stockpiling food, as well as other “anti-socialist crimes.”  Thus, Human Rights Watch said that the Human Rights Council should call for an end to North Korea’s death penalty system.

Under UPR, each UN member’s human rights record is reviewed every four years. North Korea has participated in the review process for other member states, but it has rejected resolutions from the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council condemning its own human rights violations.

Pearson said, “While North Korea has rejected UN resolutions against it, calling them a smear campaign, it has spoken up about other countries in the review process.  If it can dish out criticism, it should show that it can take it too.”

For more information, please see:

Daily NK – UN Passes North Korean Human Rights Resolution – 20 November 2009

Human Rights Watch – UN: Use Upcoming Rights Review to Press North Korea – 3 December 2009

JoongAng Daily – North to be under UN rights review – 4 December 2009