▶ North Korea’s human rights situation remains a cause of international concern and outrage, with the UN serving as a crucial forum to pressure the North.
▶ South Korea’s election to the UN Human Rights Council provides the country with a crucial platform to build solidarity and interest around North Korea human rights issues.
▶ South Korea should articulate a universalist agenda on human rights with North Korea as a major element, it should look at other examples of complex security-human rights situations like in Syria, and build an inclusive agenda to support the North Korean human rights community in South Korea.

In October, South Korea was elected to serve a new term on the UN Human Rights Council starting next year. This represents a major diplomatic victory at the UN for the country as it seeks to enhance its position as a global champion of human rights. Further, South Korea has sought to center human rights in its dealings with North Korea, and the UN provides a key platform to advance this agenda further.

North Korean Human Rights and South Korea at the UN

The UN has become an important forum for addressing North Korea’s human rights situation. Since 2004, the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has been appointed to investigate and report on the North Korean human rights situation. This position is crucial for monitoring these violations, and the continuation of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate is sustained by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Established in 2006, the UNHRC has been instrumental in addressing severe human rights abuses in North Korea. It continued the work of its predecessor and has adopted annual resolutions on North Korean human rights. In 2013, it took the landmark step of establishing a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to investigate "systemic, widespread, and grave violations of human rights" in North Korea.

The COI reported in 2014, and was considered a major milestone in North Korean human rights at the UN. The COI’s report contained testimony from hundreds of North Korean escapees and catalogued credible allegations of crimes against humanity.

Since the COI, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Seoul Office (UN Seoul Human Rights Office) was created to support work monitoring North Korea’s human rights situation. The Seoul office publishes reports on a range of issues related to human rights abuses

The South Korean government has been a proactive player at the UN. During its previous UNHRC membership from 2008 to 2013, South Korea co-sponsored resolutions on North Korean human rights and played a key role in establishing the COI in 2013.

More recently, in 2023, it moved to integrate new language to the UN General Assembly’s North Korea human rights resolution calling for the prevention of torture to North Koreans forcibly deported back to the country, and for a reexamination of the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Exclusion Act.

It also was a co-sponsor to a new North Korea human rights resolution passed by the UNHRC that called for the abolition of the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Exclusion Act alongside other acts that criminalize the spreading of South Korean culture inside the North.

What South Korea can do going forward

In 2025, South Korea will become a member of the UNHRC, remain a member of the UN Security Council and UN Economic and Social Council. This gives it three forums in which to articulate a clear and coherent vision for North Korean human rights and human rights issues more broadly.

Membership of the UNHRC gives South Korea the opportunity to engage the international community more actively on the issue of North Korean human rights. But it may consider a set of approaches that could create a more durable and long-run consensus to the issue among other nations at the UN. It may also consider how to further deepen cooperation through additional institution building at the UN.

First, while continuing to pass resolutions that condemn North Korean human rights, it may also consider an issue-centered approach. The UNHRC has a comprehensive remit that covers every aspect of human rights, and every UN member state. Building coalitions with other member states on issues of mutual concern may help to further the cause rather than a narrow focus on North Korea.

This could involve working with other member states to highlight issues associated with the rights of refugees and displaced people, a major concern for those working on North Korean human rights but also in many other parts of the world. The status of North Korean refugees in China is a pressing issue, especially given the ongoing threat of deportation back to North Korea – an issue where South Korea has already shown leadership. Raising the issue of North Korean deportations in the context of broader thematic discussions may help to build a greater consensus if it is tied to a broader concern for refugee rights more generally.

Women’s rights are another important area of growing concern within the UN human rights system. Gender Equity is the fifth goal in the UN Sustainable Development goals, a set of goals that North Korea is at least notionally committed to attaining. Domestic violence in the home and sexual abuse of detainees has been extensively documented, and can and should be raised in thematic discussions on women’s issues.

This is an issue that South Korea spotlighted in its candidature for UNHRC membership, and no doubt follow-through will be welcomed. South Korea has already committed to advancing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) in its UN Security Council membership in 2024-25.

Second, North Korea is not just a human rights crisis, it is also a burgeoning security crisis as the regime has tested and deployed a wide range of missile systems, and continues to construct a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. North Korea has also transferred a growing amount of materiel to aid Russia in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Recently, there have also been reports from South Korean, Ukraine and US intelligence sources that North Korea is deploying soldiers to fight in the conflict.

This points to the growing threat that North Korea poses to global security. This threat cannot be divorced from the human rights situation in the country. The UN Security Council has been unwilling to act on North Korean human rights, and since 2019, China and Russia have vetoed additional sanctions related to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

But as the Syrian case illustrates, security and human rights issues can be addressed through alternative means like the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM). The IIIM seeks to facilitate justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria. Looking for additional institutional tools to address the North Korean human rights and security crisis at the UN is worth considering.

Third and finally, South Korea could utilize UNHRC membership to set a long-term agenda for North Korean human rights in South Korea. It could work closely with the UN Human Rights Seoul Office and civil society stakeholders in South Korea to develop a strategy to improve human rights that utilizes the UNHRC.

This may also help to alleviate the partisan frictions that exist around the North Korean human rights issue domestically within South Korea, and help to center victims’ voices in South Korean government North Korea policy more generally. In order to do so, the South Korean government could look to develop a government strategy on North Korean human rights that more actively seeks to develop and utilize NGO capacity. A recurrent complaint is a lack of funding for human capital development (i.e., salaries), and this is an area where the South Korean government may wish to revise its approach.