GENEVA, (Reuters) – North Korea’s leaders should face trial for crimes against humanity as there has been no improvement in human rights since a U.N. report detailed Nazi-style atrocities there two years ago, a United Nations investigator said yesterday.
The 2014 U.N. report concluded that North Korean security chiefs and possibly leader Kim Jong Un should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings.
“In addition to continuing political pressure to exhort the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) to improve human rights, it is also now imperative to pursue criminal responsibility of the DPRK leadership,” said Marzuki Darusman, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, in a statement yesterday.
His comments came as the isolated state said it had detained a U.S. university student for committing a “hostile act” and wanting to “destroy the country’s unity”.
The 2014 report prompted the U.N. General Assembly to urge the U.N. Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.