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By Yi Whan-woo
The United Nations should not be fooled by North Korea in its attempt to undermine the credibility of U.N. Commission of Inquiry's (COI) report last year on Pyongyang's human rights situation, according to a former COI chairman.
The Korean-language edition of the Voice of America (VOA) said online Tuesday that Michael Kirby, who headed the COI in 2013, claimed, "There is no need to revise such a report."
Kirby's statement came after Pyongyang criticized the COI report and subsequent U.N. resolution against the repressive regime for its state-perpetrated human rights violations.
The reclusive state opposed them, saying they were based on accounts of Shin Dong-hyuk, a defector-turned activist. Shin, who testified for the U.N. investigation on North Korea, recently admitted there were inaccuracies in his recollections of life in the repressive regime.
Approved by the U.N. General Assembly in December, the resolution was based on the COI report that accused the dictatorial regime of running political prison camps where up to 120,000 people are thought to be detained. It also asked the U.N. Security Council to refer North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.
Released in February 2014, the COI report took accounts of escapees from the North into consideration. They included Shin, who later admitted that there are inaccuracies in a best-selling book, "Escape from Camp 14." Published in 2012, it was written by American journalist Blaine Harden based on Shin's account about his life in the regime's gulags.
According to the VOA, a U.S. media outlet, Kirby said North Korea should appeal to the ICC if it wants to prove any alleged errors made by the U.N.
Kirby, also a former judge in Australia, added a re-investigation of North Korea's crimes against humanity can only be made when "critical and serious" flaws are found with the evidence collected by the U.N. in its probe.
"The context of the COI report shows Shin's account was not decisive or important in leading the U.N. to take action against Pyongyang," he was quoted as saying the VOA.
On Jan 16, Shin confessed to Harden that he altered some details about his life story.
He initially testified he was born at Camp 14 in 1982 and spent his entire life there before escaping to freedom in 2005. Chances for survival are believed to be slim at Camp 14, which is known to be more cruel than others.
Shin later said he spent part of his youth at Camp 18. He also admitted he was tortured at age 20, not 13, as punishment for a failed attempt to escape the gulag in 2002. He said he did not realize that the extent to which these details mattered, and asked for forgiveness.
