WASHINGTON — A U.N. panel has found that crimes against humanity have been committed in North Korea and will call for an international criminal investigation, The Associated Press has learned.
The report, to be released Monday, is the most authoritative account yet of rights violations by North Korean authorities. It is bound to infuriate the country’s unpredictable leader. But justice remains a distant prospect, not least as North Korea’s ally, China, would be likely to block any referral to the International Criminal Court.
The commission, which conducted a year-long investigation, has found evidence of an array of crimes, including “extermination,” crimes against humanity against starving populations and a campaign of abductions of individuals in South Korea and Japan.
Its report does not examine in detail individual responsibility for crimes but recommends steps toward accountability. It could also build international pressure on North Korea, whose dire rights record has drawn less censure at the U.N. than its nuclear and missile programs have.
An outline of the report’s conclusions was provided to the AP by an individual familiar with its contents who was not authorized to divulge the information before its formal release and who spoke on condition of anonymity. A U.S. official, speaking anonymously for the same reason, confirmed the main conclusions.
The three-member commission, led by retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, was set up by the United Nations’ top human rights body last March in the most serious international attempt yet to probe evidence of violations in the reclusive, authoritarian state, which is notorious for its political prisons camps, repression and famine.
A spokesman for North Korea’s U.N. Mission in New York who refused to give his name told the AP: “We totally reject the unfounded findings of the Commission of Inquiry regarding crimes against humanity. We will never accept that.”
