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Date : November 2, 2015
Ex-U.N. panel chief calls for renewed attention on N.K.
   http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20151028000192 [874]

The former head of a U.N. investigative panel on North Korea's human rights violations, Michel Kirby, called for renewed international attention to the problem during a seminar organized by Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

The U.N. panel issued a report last year saying that the North Korean leaders are responsible for "widespread, systematic and gross" violations of human rights, and that the International Criminal Court should consider these violations to be "crimes against humanity".

The report led to the U.N. General Assembly adopting a resolution and the U.N. Security Council adopting the issue as an official agenda item.

"I think it's fair to say that although Islamic State and Syria and Libya and Iran and all the other countries that grab our leader's attention around the world, although they are the proper matters of concern, North Korea must not go off the agenda because of the peril that it presents to itself, to its own people, to the Korean Peninsula and to the world," Kirby said during the seminar.

He stressed the importance of grabbing the attention of leaders and the international community and making sure that something is done to follow up the report of the U.N. investigative panel.

He also said that he hopes the U.N. Security Council will take up the issues again in December when the U.S. serves as president of the Council.

Source: The Korea Herald

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