The measure, signed off by 47 nations on the council, was backed by the U.S., European Union, and Japan.
As Business Insider reported on Tuesday, there is a growing amount of evidence of abuse, from satellite imagery showing prison camps, to firsthand accounts from guards and escapees detailing torture, starvation, and murder.
Most reports estimate between 150,000 to 200,000 people are being held inside camps throughout the country.
From The Washington Post:
The vote follows the recommendations of U.N. special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman, who told the Geneva-based council in a report last month that the secretive Asian nation displays nine patterns of human rights violations. Darusman said the “grave, widespread and systematic violations of human rights” include having prison camps, the enforced disappearances of citizens and using food to control people.
It paves the way for the creation of a “Commission of Inquiry” for one year with three members and calls on Pyongyang to cooperate with that team of independent experts, which will include Darusman.
North Korean officials were quick to denounce the move. So Se Pyong, the North Korean UN Ambassador in Geneva, called it an "attempt to discredit the DPRK."
From Al Jazeera:
The resolution itself was "political invectives with serious distortions, fabrications and accusations about the human rights situation of the DPRK," he added.
"As we have stated time and again, those human rights abuses have totally nothing to do with the DPRK."
As CNN reported, So also told the U.N. council that North Korean citizens are "happy with pride and honor that they have one of the best systems for promotion and protection of human rights in the world."
