Flags stand outside the United Nations (UN) building, Geneva. (Photo credit: Sedat Suna/Getty Images)
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As the Human Rights Council prepares to look into the situation in North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)), the UN released a highly concerning report about the state of human rights in the country, once referred to by Justice Kirby as human rights violations without “parallel in the contemporary world.” Over a decade later, the situation does not show signs of improvement. On September 5, 2025, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), in a press briefing, presented findings of their report, having interviewed 314 victims and witnesses who left North Korea and having consulted with several organizations and experts to evaluate the situation since 2014. The findings of the report suggest that the situation has not improved, and in many cases has worsened.
Among the concerns raised is the issue of the death penalty now being used more widely, allowed by law and implemented in practice, than a decade ago. The death penalty is widely used against senior officials for broadly defined “anti-State acts,” for the distribution of unauthorized media, drugs and economic crimes, prostitution, pornography, trafficking and murder. The OHCHR indicated that it collected credible evidence that individuals have been executed for sharing online shows, which is considered to be a crime of “distributing at a certain level, foreign information, foreign media.” Public trials and executions are being used to instil fear in the population and as a deterrent.
New laws, policies and practices have enabled increased surveillance and control over citizens in all parts of life, some of whom have ended up in forced labor camps, as political prisoners. As one escapee told OHCHR: “To block the people’s eyes and ears, they strengthened the crackdowns. It was a form of control aimed at eliminating even the smallest signs of dissatisfaction or complaint.” As the report finds: “No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world.”
Forced labor is said to have become deeply institutionalized over the past decade, through “forced mobilizations in the prison system, in the military, in “shock brigades”, in neighborhood watch units and other community groups, in the school system and among overseas workers.” Authorities in Pyongyang are said to have used thousands of orphans and street children to work in coal mines and other environments where they would be exposed to hazardous materials and long working hours. In addition, school children do “backbreaking” work collecting harvests instead of being in class. Concerningly, deaths are said to be frequent; “however, rather than providing health and safety measures, the Government publicly glorifies deaths as a sacrifice to the leader.”
Furthermore, the report explains that, “The fate of the hundreds of thousands of disappeared persons, including abducted foreign nationals, remains unknown. Meetings of separated families have not been held in the past seven years. Communication and the sending of remittances between separated families is now extremely difficult. Citizens continue to be subjected to unremitting propaganda by the State.”
The report concludes that North Korea is far from adhering to its obligations under international law. Furthermore, as North Korea remains isolated, and more so than any other country, monitoring of human rights compliance is highly challenging. More than a decade later, the majority of the recommendations made by the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (Commission of Inquiry), chaired by Justice Kirby, have not been implemented. Accountability for human rights violations is minimal, and accountability for international crimes remains non-existent. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk, commenting on the findings, said: “What we have witnessed is a lost decade. And it pains me to say that if [North Korea]
continues on its current trajectory, the population will be subjected to more of the suffering, brutal repression and fear that they have endured for so long.”
