(Geneva) – The north korea The government should urgently act on the recommendations of United Nations member states during the fourth universal periodic review (UPR) of the human rights situation in North Korea at the UN Human Rights Council on 7 November 2024, a Human Rights Watch and the Transitional Justice Working Group said today.

In the draft report of the UPR circulated as of November 11, 2024, North Korea has effectively rejected 88 recommendations, including those calling for cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms, an end to torture, the release of political prisoners, an end to forced labor, and ensuring the right to freedom of expression.

“North Korea’s rejection of so many recommendations to improve its human rights record demonstrates its government’s total disregard for international human rights standards and the rights of the North Korean people,” it said. Simon Hendersondeputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The North Korean government must end its brutal repression of fundamental rights and end the growing isolation of its people from the world.”

Several UN member states have called on North Korea to implement the recommendations of this landmark 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry Reportincluding clarifying the situation and whereabouts of forcibly disappeared persons. The 2014 report found that widespread and systematic human rights violations by the North Korean government constituted crimes against humanity. North Korea rejected these recommendations.

Under the UPR, member states provided a total of 306 recommendations to the North Korean government, covering its long record of human rights violations and crimes against humanity. Numerous governments have said North Korea should take immediate steps to address the human rights crisis, including taking steps to address chronic and preventable malnutrition and hunger, caused in part by the diversion of critical resources to its military leadership and weapons programs .

Human Rights Watch and Transitional Justice Working Group DEPOSIT recommendations in April as part of North Korea’s fourth UPR cycle. The groups pointed to increasingly harsh government controls and human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention, torture and unfair trials, which maintain the country’s climate of fear and submission.

At the UPR, numerous countries called on North Korea to take concrete steps to uphold civil and political rights, including by decriminalizing the rights to freedom of expression and movement under the country’s Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act and other legislation. Human Rights Watch published a report in March 2024, documenting North Korea’s severe travel restrictions between 2018 and 2023 and their impact on the general population’s livelihoods and access to basic needs such as food and medicine.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the government imposed extreme measures on resident diplomats and workers of international organizations, leading diplomats and international non-governmental organizations and the UN to leave the country. During the current review, 16 countries said North Korea should grant unfettered access to UN human rights monitors. Several also said North Korea should allow UN development and humanitarian assistance.

Many council members called for the release of political prisoners, including nine countries that recommended closing political prison camps. More than 20 countries, including South Korea and Ireland, have also called on North Korea to ensure protection against torture in detention centers, including against people forcibly repatriated to North Korea.

Canada said North Korea should end forced abortions on repatriated women during pregnancy, as documented in the 2014 report. Many countries recommended North Korea ratify the Convention Against Torture and the International Convention Against Enforced disappearancewhile others recommended ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Gambia said North Korea should eliminate forced labor abroad for North Koreans, and Namibia and Sri Lanka called on North Korea to become a member of the International Labor Organization and ratify its core conventions.

The North Korean government should accept the recommendations of UN members, Human Rights Watch and the Transitional Justice Working Group said.

“North Korea, under the Kim family regime, has used executions, political prisons and labor camps, torture and trials as tools to promote a climate of fear and force its people to obey,” it said. Ethan Hee-Seok Shinlegal analyst at the Transitional Justice Working Group. “The international community must no longer turn a blind eye. UN member states should engage directly with the North Korean government and in UN forums and work to hold it accountable to its international human rights obligations.”