As is being widely reported, a Report released by the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea (set up under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) sets out a scathing and disturbing picture of the government of North Korea. Compared by some commentators to the Nazi Germany regime, the DPRK is implicated in mass atrocities in the Report, many of which the commissioners characterize as crimes against humanity.
They conclude that the UN Security Council should refer the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court. Such a referral would be legally necessary because DPRK has not signed the Rome Statute so as to willingly come under the Court’s jurisdiction. The Security Council can nonetheless bring the state under the Court’s jurisdiction by way of a Resolution, which it did with both Sudan and Libya.
None of this is actually new, or news, but the hope is that more light might act as disinfectant for the blight on humanity that is the regime of Kim Jong-un. It is difficult to say whether anything will happen. China is not providing overly stiff resistance to the Report’s findings but seems to be signalling that it will not tolerate any serious action against DPRK, and thus would likely act to veto any proposed Security Council Resolution, whether it was a referral to the ICC or otherwise.