Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

A/HRC/RES/55/21View PDF

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A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 4Human rights situations that require the Council's attention, published in 2024.

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38 documents · 2006–2026

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2026A/HRC/RES/61/27Situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of KoreaCompare with earlier document
2025A/RES/80/220Situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of KoreaCompare with earlier document
2025A/HRC/RES/58/17Situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of KoreaCompare with earlier document
2024A/RES/79/181Situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of KoreaCompare with earlier document
2024A/HRC/RES/55/21Situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of KoreaCompare with earlier document

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What subjects does this mandate have?

5 topics

Accountability Democratic People's Republic of Korea Human Rights Human Rights Violations Special Rapporteurs

What does this mandate say?

58 operative paragraphs

Condemns in the strongest terms the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations and other human rights abuses committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and expresses again its grave concern at the detailed findings made by the commission of inquiry in its report, in the ongoing monitoring and documentation work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the developments since then, including:

The denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the right to adopt a religion or belief, and of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, and association, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of any kind, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of one’s choice, both online and offline, which is enforced through all-pervasive and severe restrictions, including an absolute monopoly on information and total control over organized social life, and arbitrary State surveillance that permeates the private lives of all citizens;

Discrimination based on the songbun system, which classifies people on the basis of State-assigned social class and birth and also includes consideration of political opinions and religion, and which intersects with disability and with gender-based discrimination against women and girls, including unequal access to employment, discriminatory laws and regulations, and violence against women and girls, including sexual and gender-based violence;

Violations of all aspects of the right to freedom of movement, including forced assignment to State-designated places of residence and employment, often based on the songbun system, and denial of the right to leave one’s own country;

Systematic, widespread and grave violations of the right to adequate food and related aspects of the right to life, exacerbated by widespread hunger and malnutrition;

Violations of the right to life and acts of extermination, murder, enslavement, torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, imprisonment, rape and other grave forms of sexual and gender-based violence and persecution on any grounds, including on the grounds of political opinion, religion or belief and sexual orientation and gender identity, throughout the entire penal system and in all places of detention, including in prison camps, re-education camps, labour training camps, labour training centres, detention centres, holding centres and waiting rooms, and the widespread practice of collective punishment, with harsh sentences imposed on innocent individuals;

Persistent violations and abuses of all rights of all women and girls, who remain the most vulnerable to trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation or domestic servitude and to child, early and forced marriage and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence;

The enforced and involuntary disappearance of persons by arrest, detention or abduction against their will, the refusal to disclose the fate and whereabouts of the persons concerned and the refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and which has had the effect of inflicting severe suffering on them and their families;

Systematic abduction, denial of repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons, including those from other States Members of the United Nations, on a large scale and as a matter of State policy;

Urges the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to acknowledge its crimes, abuses and human rights violations, in and outside of the country, and to take immediately all steps necessary to end all such crimes, abuses and violations through, inter alia, the implementation of relevant recommendations contained in the report of the commission of inquiry and in General Assembly resolution 78/218, including but not limited to the following steps:

Ensuring the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief and the rights to freedom of opinion, expression and association, both online and offline, including by permitting the establishment of independent newspapers and other media and repealing or reforming all practices and laws suppressing the aforementioned rights, including the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Thought and Culture, the Youth Education Guarantee Law and the Law on Protecting the Pyongyang Cultural Language;

Ending discrimination against citizens, including State-sponsored discrimination based on the songbun system, and taking immediate steps to ensure gender equality and the full enjoyment by all women and girls of their human rights and the protection of women and girls from all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence;

Ensuring the right to freedom of movement, including the freedom to choose one’s place of residence and employment;

Promoting equal access to food, including by allowing humanitarian access to all persons in need and full transparency regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance so that such assistance is provided to persons in vulnerable situations, including persons with disabilities, older persons, individuals in detention, children, and women and girls, especially those who are pregnant and lactating;

Allowing humanitarian organizations and humanitarian personnel to carry out their activities, commencing with the immediate reopening of the national borders of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the delivery of urgently required humanitarian goods, such as food, medicines and agricultural supplies;

Cooperating with the international community to respond constructively to all offers of assistance to ensure the timely delivery and equitable distribution of sufficient vaccine doses, and recognizing the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and that access to vaccines is essential, including through the entry of international staff and the prioritization of the shipment of life-saving humanitarian assistance, in accordance with guidance and best practice provided by the World Health Organization;

Halting immediately all human rights violations in the entire penal system and in all places of detention, including in prison camps, re-education camps, labour training camps, labour training centres, detention centres, holding centres and waiting rooms, including the practice of forced labour and the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment and sexual and gender-based violence, dismantling all political prison camps and releasing all political prisoners, immediately ceasing the practice of the arbitrary and summary execution of persons in custody, including public executions, and ensuring that justice sector reforms provide for protections for fair trials and due process;

Urgently resolving the issue of all persons who have been abducted or otherwise forcibly disappeared and their descendants by clarifying their fate and whereabouts, in good faith and with transparency, including by ensuring the realization of their immediate return, and engaging in constructive dialogue with the parties concerned;

Ensuring the immediate resumption of the reunions of separated families across the border, considering the advanced age of the family members concerned;

Abolishing immediately the practice of guilt-by-association punishment;

Ensuring that everyone within the territory of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea enjoys the right to liberty of movement and is free to leave the country, including for the purpose of seeking asylum outside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, without interference by the authorities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea;

Providing nationals of other States Members of the United Nations detained in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with protections, including freedom of communication with and access to consular officers, in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a party, and any other necessary arrangements to confirm their status and to communicate with their families;

Ensuring that citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea who have been expelled or repatriated to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are able to return in safety and dignity, are treated humanely and are not subjected to any kind of human rights violation, including enforced disappearance, arbitrary execution, torture and ill-treatment, as well as sexual and gender-based violence, and providing information on their status and treatment, in particular of women, children and persons with disabilities in detention;

Recalls General Assembly resolution 78/218, in which the Assembly expressed its very serious concern at the violations of workers’ rights, including the right to freedom of association and effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, and the prohibition of the economic exploitation of children and of any harmful or hazardous work of children, as well as at the exploitation of workers sent abroad from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to work under conditions that reportedly amount to forced labour, often for the purpose of generating income for the Government;

Also recalls paragraph 11 of Security Council resolution 2371 (2017), paragraph 17 of Council resolution 2375 (2017) and in particular paragraph 8 of Council resolution 2397 (2017), in which the Council decided that States Members of the United Nations should repatriate to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea all nationals of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea earning income in their jurisdictions and all Democratic People’s Republic of Korea government safety oversight attachés monitoring Democratic People’s Republic of Korea workers abroad immediately, but no later than 24 months from 22 December 2017, urges all States to fully comply, especially as there are indications of transport routes reopening, unless the particular State determines that the national is a national of that State or is prohibited from repatriation under applicable national and international law, including international refugee law and international human rights law, and urges the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to promote, respect and protect the human rights of workers, including workers who were repatriated to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by 22 December 2019 in accordance with paragraph 8 of Council resolution 2397 (2017);

Further recalls paragraph 4 of General Assembly resolution 78/218, in which the Assembly underscored its very serious concern regarding reports of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, summary executions, arbitrary detention, abductions and other forms of human rights violations and abuses that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea commits against citizens of other States Members of the United Nations within and outside of its territory, and urged the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to disclose all relevant information about such persons, including their fate and whereabouts, to bereaved families and relevant entities;

Reiterates its deep concern at the findings of the commission of inquiry and subsequent investigations of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights concerning the situation of refugees and asylum-seekers returned to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and other citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea who have been repatriated from abroad and made subject to sanctions, including internment, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, sexual and gender-based violence, enforced disappearance or the death penalty, in this regard strongly urges all States to respect the fundamental principle of non-refoulement, especially in the light of the resumption of cross-border travel, including where the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea exerts pressure on returning States to effectuate such returns, to take action to counter acts of transnational repression by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to treat humanely those who seek refuge and to ensure unhindered access to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, with a view to protecting the human rights of those who seek refuge, and to ensure adequate international protection by refraining from sharing information about the contacts and conduct of refugees, asylum-seekers and other citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and once again urges States to comply with their obligations under international human rights law, including the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment as well as the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Protocol thereto, in relation to persons from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea who are covered by those instruments;

Stresses and restates its grave concern at the finding of the commission of inquiry that the body of testimony gathered and the information received provided reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the State for decades and by institutions under the effective control of its leadership, and that the crimes against humanity entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender-related grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation;

Stresses that the authorities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continue to fail to hold accountable those responsible for crimes against humanity and other human rights violations and abuses, and encourages all States, the United Nations system, including relevant specialized agencies, regional intergovernmental organizations and forums, civil society organizations, foundations and other stakeholders to cooperate with accountability efforts, especially the efforts made by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and to ensure that the crimes do not remain unpunished;

Welcomes General Assembly resolution 78/218, in which the Assembly welcomed the resumption of the Security Council discussion on the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and encouraged the Council to continue its consideration of the relevant conclusions and recommendations of the commission of inquiry and to take appropriate action to ensure accountability, including through consideration of referral of the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court and consideration of the further development of sanctions in order to target effectively those who appear to be most responsible for human rights violations that the commission has said may constitute crimes against humanity;

Commends the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the activities undertaken to date and her continued efforts in the conduct of her mandate despite the lack of access to the country;

Welcomes the report of the Special Rapporteur;

Recalls the recommendations of the commission of inquiry and those contained in General Assembly resolution 78/218, and reiterates the importance of maintaining the grave situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea high on the international agenda, including through sustained communications, advocacy and outreach initiatives, and requests the Office of the High Commissioner to strengthen those activities;

Welcomes the oral update of the High Commissioner, presented to the Human Rights Council pursuant to its resolution 52/28, on promoting accountability in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and commends the Office of the High Commissioner, including its field-based structure in Seoul, for the efforts it has made to date, and encourages it to take into account the experience of other relevant mechanisms and to actively engage and cooperate with national, regional and international mechanisms, and civil society, victims and survivors, as appropriate, as part of its efforts to identify strategies for accountability, in accordance with international law standards;

Also welcomes the steps taken to continue to strengthen the capacity of the Office of the High Commissioner, including its field-based structure in Seoul, to allow the implementation of relevant recommendations made by the group of independent experts on accountability in its report, aimed at strengthening current monitoring and documentation efforts, compiling a central information and evidence repository and having experts in legal accountability assess all information and testimonies, with a view to developing possible strategies to be used in any future accountability process, and encourages cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders in the procurement of evidence that could be used in future criminal proceedings;

Decides to this end to further strengthen the capacity of the Office of the High Commissioner, including its field-based structure in Seoul, with further additional resources and expertise for increasing the amount of first-hand information in the repository by expanding the number of interviews, and for the analysis of that information;

Requests the High Commissioner to submit a comprehensive report containing an update on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea since 2014, when the report of the commission of inquiry was published, and taking stock of the implementation of the commission’s recommendations, to the Human Rights Council at its sixtieth session, to be followed by an enhanced interactive dialogue;

Decides to extend the mandate of Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 37/28, for a period of one year;

Requests the High Commissioner to continue to explore options for strengthening, institutionalizing and further advancing work on accountability in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the report to be submitted to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-eighth session pursuant to Council resolution 52/28;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner to continue to organize a series of consultations and outreach activities with victims, affected communities and other relevant stakeholders with a view to ensuring a victim-centred approach to accountability and to including their views in avenues for accountability;

Calls again upon all parties concerned, including United Nations bodies, to consider implementing the recommendations made by the commission of inquiry in its report in order to address the dire situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea;

Encourages the field-based structure of the Office of the High Commissioner in Seoul to continue its endeavours, welcomes its regular reports to the Human Rights Council, and invites the High Commissioner to provide the Council with regular updates on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea;

Calls upon all States to undertake to ensure that the field-based structure of the Office of the High Commissioner can function with independence, that it has sufficient resources to fulfil its mandate, that it enjoys full cooperation with relevant States and that it is not subjected to any reprisals or threats;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner to report on its follow-up efforts in the regular annual report of the Secretary-General submitted to the General Assembly on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea;

Requests the Special Rapporteur to submit regular reports to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly on the implementation of the mandate, including on the follow-up efforts made in the implementation of the recommendations of the commission of inquiry;

Urges the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, through continuous dialogues, to invite and to cooperate fully with all special procedure mandate holders, especially the Special Rapporteur, to give the Special Rapporteur and supporting staff unrestricted access to visit the country, to provide them with all information necessary to enable them to fulfil such a mandate and to promote technical cooperation with the Office of the High Commissioner;

Encourages the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to extend an invitation to the Office of the High Commissioner to visit the country;

Also encourages the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to fulfil its stated commitment to implement the accepted recommendations contained in the outcome reports of the previous cycles of the universal periodic review and to consider the possibility of implementing a further 56 recommendations made in the third cycle;

Further encourages the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to provide comprehensive information detailing progress on the implementation of the recommendations it accepted in the previous cycles of the universal periodic review, including with regard to the ratification or accession to core international human rights instruments to which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is still not a party, in particular the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to further expand cooperation with other United Nations human rights mechanisms in order to address all human rights violations and abuses in the country and to take all measures necessary to fully fulfil the obligations under international instruments to which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a party, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;

Encourages the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to constructively engage and participate in the fourth cycle of the universal periodic review, and to allow independent civil society organizations to operate openly and to provide stakeholder submissions, in view of the adoption of the outcome report scheduled at the fifty-eighth session of the Human Rights Council;

Encourages the United Nations system, including its specialized agencies, States, regional intergovernmental organizations, interested institutions, independent experts and non-governmental organizations to develop constructive dialogue and cooperation with special procedure mandate holders, including the Special Rapporteur, and the field-based structure of the Office of the High Commissioner;

Encourages all States, the United Nations system, including its relevant specialized agencies, regional intergovernmental organizations and forums, civil society organizations, foundations and engaged business enterprises and other stakeholders towards which the commission of inquiry has directed recommendations to take those recommendations forward;

Encourages all States, the United Nations system, including its relevant specialized agencies, regional intergovernmental organizations and forums, civil society organizations, foundations and engaged business enterprises and other stakeholders to support efforts aimed at improving dialogue on and engagement with regard to the humanitarian and human rights situation, including international abductions, in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and inter-Korean dialogue;

Urges the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to refrain from the use of deadly and other excessive force at its borders and elsewhere, to work with the international community, including the United Nations system, and to facilitate conditions to alleviate the suffering of the citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and to allow international staff to operate in the country so that the international community can provide assistance based on independent needs assessments, including of persons experiencing vulnerability in detention centres, and a monitoring capacity, consistent with international standards and humanitarian principles and in accordance with relevant Security Council resolutions;

Encourages the United Nations system as a whole to continue to address the grave situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in a coordinated and unified manner, including through consideration by the Security Council;

Encourages all States that have relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to use their influence to encourage it to take immediate steps to end all human rights violations and abuses, including by closing political prison camps and undertaking profound institutional reforms;

Requests the Secretary-General to provide the Special Rapporteur and the Office of the High Commissioner with regard to the field-based structure with sufficient resources and the support necessary to carry out the mandate effectively, including to support the information and evidence repository, and to ensure that the mandate holder receives the support of the Office of the High Commissioner;

Decides to transmit all reports of the Special Rapporteur to all relevant bodies of the United Nations and to the Secretary-General for appropriate action.

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