In what was probably the last significant United Nations Security Council meeting of the year, Security Council members heard on December 22nd a horrific accounting of flagrant, systematic and widespread human rights abuses committed by the totalitarian Communist regime of North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK). The regime’s crimes against humanity were detailed in a report issued in February 2014 by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK, which recommended that these crimes be referred to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution. The UN General Assembly voted earlier this month, by a wide margin, to recommend that the Security Council take up the human rights issue as documented in the Commission of Inquiry report, in addition to the nuclear non-proliferation concerns it normally addresses in dealing with North Korea.
