North Korea and the Responsibility to Protect

The 5 page report can be downloaded in PDF format at the link below.  This is the first paper I have read that explicitly discusses Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in terms of north Korea.  Excerpt:

This Policy Brief clarifies 

the application of R2P in the case of DPRK, outlining the 

responsibility of the international community in relation 

to the government’s commission of crimes against 

humanity. While the situation remains complex and 

dangerous, the international community, especially the 

UNSC, has not exhausted all options and can no longer 

continue to overlook ongoing mass atrocity crimes in 

DPRK. 

Policy Brief 

18 August 2014

http://www.globalr2p.org/media/files/dprk-and-r2p-august-2014-1.pdf

North Korea and the 

Responsibility to Protect

INTRODUCTION 

The human rights and humanitarian situation in the 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is dire. 

Crimes against humanity as well as other systematic and 

widespread human rights violations continue to be 

committed by the government under the current 

“Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong-un. Despite testimony 

from defectors and other credible evidence accumulated 

over the last decade, the government has never 

acknowledged the existence of abuses, nor amended its 

repressive policies. Extreme political isolation and 

governmental intransigence continue to hamper further 

investigation and accountability. 

Amid mounting human rights concerns in DPRK, on 21 

March 2013 the United Nations (UN) Human Rights 

Council adopted resolution 22/13, establishing a 

Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to investigate systematic, 

widespread and grave violations of human rights, 

particularly where “these violations may amount to 

crimes against humanity.”1 

The CoI published its findings on 7 February 2014, 

establishing responsibility at the highest level of 

government for ongoing crimes against humanity, 

including “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.” The 

report noted the government’s failure to uphold its 

primary responsibility to protect its population. 

For nearly a decade UN bodies, including the General 

Assembly, Human Rights Council and Secretariat, have 

expressed concern over grave human rights violations 

and called upon the government to improve the 

situation. While the UN Security Council (UNSC) has 

been engaged on DPRK in relation to nuclear weapons, 

it has never directly addressed ongoing human rights 

abuses. DPRK’s provocative nuclear policies, as well as 

security concerns over the ongoing division of the 

Korean Peninsula as a result of the 1950-1953 Korean 

War, have continued to overshadow human rights 

issues. 

The DPRK government bears the primary Responsibility 

to Protect (R2P) its population from genocide, ethnic 

cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity, but 

is manifestly failing to do so. This Policy Brief clarifies 

the application of R2P in the case of DPRK, outlining the 

responsibility of the international community in relation 

to the government’s commission of crimes against 

humanity. While the situation remains complex and 

dangerous, the international community, especially the 

UNSC, has not exhausted all options and can no longer 

continue to overlook ongoing mass atrocity crimes in 

DPRK.