We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, welcome and commend the decision of the President of the Republic of Korea, Lee Jae-myung, to co-sponsor the Human Rights Council resolution on the human rights situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), adopted by consensus on March 30, 2026, at the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council.
This decision reaffirms South Korea's longstanding commitment to universal values including freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, and sends an important signal of principled leadership at a time of heightened global uncertainty.
This decision sparked a public debate in South Korea. We recognize that concerns raised by a number of South Korean voices, including government and some civil society organizations about the impact on diplomacy, escalation, and the prospects for a sustainable peace with the DPRK, reflect anxieties shaped by the unresolved conflict on the Korean peninsula.
Defending human rights is not an act of hostility. We recognize that South Korea faces a uniquely complex security environment and concerns about avoiding unnecessary escalation. But calling on a government to stop committing crimes against humanity, as documented by the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry report, is a responsibility of states under international law. The suggestion that South Korea should define its human rights commitments according to what the North Korean government considers provocative inverts the logic of international human rights law. North Korea accepted the legal obligation to respect and observe universal human rights by ratifying core human rights treaties and joining the United Nations. The systematic commission of crimes against humanity is not a sovereign prerogative. A commitment to avoid hostile acts towards another state cannot reasonably encompass silence on atrocity crimes.
Being a party to the conflict deepens South Korea's human rights obligations; it does not suspend them. International practice shows that states engaged in conflict often raise human rights concerns, recognizing that silence entrenches abuses and narrows future political options. South Korea's constitution recognizes the millions of North Koreans living under the North Korean government's systematic repression as South Korean nationals. International human rights law does not fall silent when parties are engaged in conflict. To argue that South Korea must wait for a peace agreement before addressing crimes against humanity is to hold the rights of the North Korean people hostage to a process that the North Korean government has refused to engage in.
Human rights, peace, and security are inseparable. Between 2019 and 2022, South Korea stopped co-sponsoring the resolution and pursued engagement at the expense of accountability. This was not principled diplomacy. Not only did it not produce any discernible improvement on the part of the North Korean government, this policy of appeasement created an environment where the South Korean government itself forcibly repatriated two North Korean fishermen in November 2019 to near-certain torture, enslavement, and enforced disappearance or execution, in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture. North Korea's system of repression, including public executions, political prison camps, information control, forced repatriation, and transnational repression, is not a byproduct of external tension but a deliberate system of governance that entrenches opacity and long-term instability. Ignoring these realities in the name of short-term deescalation risks normalizing atrocity crimes and constraining future political choices. Sustainable peace, understood not merely as the absence of armed conflict, but as a condition in which the rights and security of all people are protected, cannot be built on a foundation that sidelines human rights. The Belfast Agreement, often cited as a model for Korean peace, succeeded precisely because human rights were embedded in the peace architecture, not deferred until after it.
The answer to inconsistency is more consistency, not silence. The argument that Seoul should not address North Korean human rights because it fails to challenge abuses by some powerful states ultimately serves to shield the North Korean government from any scrutiny. South Korea should be more principled across all contexts.
Twenty years of resolutions represent sustained international resolve. The annual resolution highlights the international community's grave concerns and sustains the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and supports documentation to prepare for future accountability. It also created the 2014 Commission of Inquiry, which produced the most comprehensive record of North Korean human rights violations ever assembled, establishing that North Korea committed crimes against humanity. The 2025 report by the High Commissioner of Human Rights to update the COI report and take stock of implementation of the COI's recommendations found that the situation has worsened. The North Korean government is sensitive to international criticism of its human rights record and has reportedly responded to the COI report and other international efforts, which bolsters the argument for sustained principled engagement.
We urge the government to:
- Sustain this principled position for future North Korean human rights resolutions at the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council;
- Resume publication of the Ministry of Unification's annual North Korea Human Rights Report;
- Restore the North Korean human rights and humanitarian office and the abductees response team in the MOU that were disbanded last year;
- Restart targeted broadcasts on news and information into North Korea, and engage substantively with the special rapporteur on North Korea;
- Proactively promote North Korean human right concerns by appointing a North Korean human rights ambassador;
- Press to restore language in the Human Rights Council resolution mentioning the COI findings on crimes against humanity and on the protection of information on North Korean refugees and asylum-seekers in China and Russia;
- Explore the full range of available international accountability mechanisms that align with the COI's recommendations, taking into account recent developments in international accountability bodies; and
- Redouble diplomatic efforts to resolve the issues of separated families, abductees, detainees and unrepatriated prisoners of war.
We congratulate and thank President Lee for demonstrating South Korea's principled leadership and support for the advancement of human rights by co-sponsoring this resolution.
Signatories:
Organizations:
- Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates
- Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina (CADAL)
- Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)
- Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P)
- Global Rights Compliance (GRC)
- HanVoice
- Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
- Human Asia
- Human Rights Foundation (HRF)
- Human Rights Watch (HRW)
- Human Rights Without Frontiers International (HRWF)
- International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK)
- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
- Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea (COMJAN)
- Justice For North Korea
- Korea Center for United Nations Human Rights Policy (KOCUN)
- Korea Of All (KOA)
- Liberty in North Korea (LiNK)
- No Fence
- Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights (NKnet)
- People for Successful COrean REunificaiton (PSCORE)
- Society To Help Returnees From Japan To North Korea
- Song Foundation for North Korea Human Rights
- Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG)
- Unification Academy
Individuals:
- David Alton, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea in the UK Parliament
- Sonja Bizerko, Former member of the Commission of Inquiry on North Korean human rights
- Roberta Cohen, Former co-chair, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
