By Jonathan Cheng

The Wall Street Journal

June 18, 2014

Three months ago, a United Nations commission of inquiry into human rights abuses in North Korea produced a 372-page document systematically detailing a litany of horrific charges, and recommending the U.N. refer the case to the International Criminal Court.

Even the optimists don’t think that will happen — China, an ally of North Korea, holds a Security Council veto that would more or less stop such an effort in its tracks. China didn’t cooperate with the commission of inquiry, and pointedly urged the commission to “not be misled by unproved information.”

So where does that leave those looking to hold the North accountable? A third-party legal opinion by Hogan Lovells, an Anglo-American law firm, highlights the difficulties with which anything can be done.

The 96-page pro bono legal opinion, which is slated for publication on Wednesday, was prepared by Hogan Lovells on behalf of Human Liberty, a Washington-based non-government group founded by Lee Jung-hoon, South Korea’s ambassador for human rights.

It is timed for a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, that will include Mr. Lee and North Korean prison camp escapee Shin Dong-hyuk, who testified before the U.N. commission of inquiry and is perhaps best known as the subject of the book “Escape From Camp 14.”

The hope is to give a nudge to efforts in the U.S. and South Korea to translate outrage over the commission of inquiry report into real-world pressure on Pyongyang.

For the most part, the Hogan Lovells report reaffirms the gist of the original U.N. commission of inquiry findings, authored by commission chairman and retired Australian judge Michael Kirby: namely, that gross human rights violations, and even crimes against humanity, had been committed in North Korea.

But where the U.N. report stopped short of accusing North Korea of genocide — a hot-button term that is typically defined as killing aimed at a particular ethnic, racial or religious group — Hogan Lovells says that there may be grounds for making that assertion against North Korea.

In particular, Paul Dacam, a London-based lawyer for Hogan Lovells who authored the report, says that North Korea systematically targeted Christians and those deemed to be in the “hostile class” antagonistic to the state.

Mr. Dacam urged further work into determining whether or not the word “genocide” applies — a label that he said “resonates a lot more with the international community, and puts more pressure on the Security Council to do what it should do.”

Even without the Security Council’s referral, Mr. Dacam argues that the International Criminal Court can take up the case on its own — within a limited scope.

While North Korea hasn’t accepted the jurisdiction of the international tribunal, Mr. Dacam notes that any crimes against humanity committed by North Korea outside its borders — including slave laborers or foreign citizens abducted by Pyongyang — could be taken up by The Hague.

“There is a potential way to get North Korea to the ICC through another route,” he says, though Mr. Dacam concedes that the tribunal would not have the latitude to tackle alleged actions within North Korea.

Separately in the report, Mr. Dacam also calls for further sanctions from the U.N. to ban luxury goods exports to North Korea, and to block key North Korean leaders from traveling abroad.

But Mr. Dacam, speaking in a phone interview, conceded the difficulty of trying to sway the U.N. Security Council, where China has a veto, and of sustaining interest from the world.

“The international community has turned its back. Its attention has turned away again,” Mr. Dacam said.

Featured Image: Michael Kirby, Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, shows his report on the human rights violations in North Korea, during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, February 17, 2014 (European Pressphoto Agency)

Copyright 2014. 

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