The U.S. has already expressed support for the inquiry. However, there was much more suspense to whether South Korea would agree to the inquiry given that the new president had pledged to improve North-South relations. Addressing human rights at the start of her tenure would surely not be well-received by Pyeongyang, jeopardizing the opportunity to improve relations. However, not supporting the investigation would weaken the legitimacy and credibility of the UN investigation.
However, South Korea decided to support the inquiry yesterday. This is a good decision. Why turn a blind eye to North Korean human rights abuses when it clearly exists? There's no guarantee that the North will follow-up on negotiations even if Seoul defers its support. Also, there's no reason to write off the possibility of engaging the North, even as Seoul acknowledges human rights abuses. At least Seoul would be on higher moral ground if the Park government makes an initial gesture to provide aid and the North rejected it because of South Korea's support for the UN inquiry.
Update #1: Roberta Cohen weighs in on events leading to the adoption resolution to hold a UN commission of inquiry into abuses in North Korea.
Update #2: Steph Haggard also discusses the UN Commission of Inquiry and tags documentation. He notes four advantages of moving ahead with the inquiry.
First, we found it interesting that the North Koreans felt compelled to respond, even if they claimed that the resolution was not worthy of response. Somewhere, someone in North Korea is reading a statement by the Foreign Ministry saying that North Korea does not have a human rights problem. As cynicism rises, such statements are rightly interpreted as implying the opposite. .
Second, the commission will galvanize organizations working on the issue, and give their activities a boost, including with respect to refugees.
Third, the action has diplomatic effect. Its hard for the DPRK to say that a resolution passed with Venezuelan support is a cabal of the imperialists; North Korea is increasingly identified with other states and conflicts with commissions of inquiry, such as Syria or Darfur.
Finally, if we are going to have international crimes as we now do under the Rome Statute it is important that allegations of them be investigated and treated with the seriousness they deserve. Building international law is a function of practice, and commissions of inquiry can contribute to that practice.
In other news: Dennis Rodman meets Kim Jong-Un on basketball diplomacy. Crazy PR stunt or an updated version of ping-pong diplomacy? NPR has a good story on this.
