– 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by on 2014-04-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the United Kingdom Ambassador to North Korea has raised with the authorities there the terms of the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution (A/HRC/25/L.17) condemning long-standing and ongoing systematic

Baroness Warsi

We regularly raise concerns about the appalling human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea (DPRK) during our meetings with the DPRK authorities. We have raised the Commission of Inquiry report and will be raising the UN Human Rights Council Resolution (UNHRC) in our next meetings. The UK played a key role in ensuring a strong Resolution and will continue to work with partners to ensure the matter remains in the spotlight. It is unfortunate that some UNHRC members chose to either abstain or vote against the Resolution and, as we made clear in the UK statement at the time of the vote, we consider that doing so was a failure in their responsibility to help resolve the crisis and improve the lives of the North Korean people. Nevertheless, the resolution was passed with a significant majority and provides a solid platform for ongoing work in this area, not least through increased support for the Special Rapporteur. We are pleased that it includes a provision encouraging all states who have relations with the DPRK to use their influence to encourage the DPRK to take immediate steps to end all human rights violations. In our bilateral contacts with these states we will be encouraging them to act in accordance with this provision.