UN Rapporteur Highlights Deteriorating Human Rights in North Korea

While international attention often focuses on North Korea’s ballistic missile launches, the country’s severe and ongoing human rights crisis demands continued scrutiny. On March 13, Elizabeth Salmón, the United Nations special rapporteur on North Korea, addressed the UN Human Rights Council, underscoring the lack of improvement – and in many areas, the deterioration – of human rights within the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Report Findings and Key Concerns

Salmón’s report to the Human Rights Council proposed measurable indicators to track North Korea’s implementation of recommendations stemming from the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a UN process that assesses the human rights record of each country. The report highlighted several critical areas of concern:

• Freedom of Movement: The DPRK has expanded border fences, increased guard posts, and intensified enforcement of domestic travel permit requirements since the COVID-19 pandemic. Border guards maintain shoot-on-sight orders for those attempting to leave without authorization.
• Defections to South Korea: Only 223 North Koreans reached South Korea in 2025, a significant decrease indicating the increased difficulty and risk associated with defection.
• Treatment of Returnees: Those caught attempting to flee North Korea face severe consequences, including torture, imprisonment, and forced labor. A North Korean woman currently detained in China is at risk of forced return and the abuses that accompany it.
• Forced Labor: Pyongyang rejected all UPR recommendations related to forced labor. The 2025 Labour Management Act effectively codifies state-directed forced labor by assigning individuals to workplaces.

The Link Between Security and Human Rights

The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights and numerous UN findings have consistently emphasized the interconnectedness of North Korea’s security policies and its human rights record. The country’s nuclear weapons programs have been sustained through practices such as arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, forced labor, and severe restrictions on access to information and freedom of movement.

Call for Increased Engagement and Accountability

Salmón emphasized that human rights should serve “as an opening for engagement” and be central to any future dialogue with North Korea. She urged the Human Rights Council to renew her mandate and called on governments to increase financial support for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) monitoring the situation in North Korea, particularly those affected by recent US funding cuts.

the High Commissioner has urged states to pursue accountability for human rights violations, including potential referral to the International Criminal Court and prosecutions in other countries utilizing the UN’s repository of evidence.

About Elizabeth Salmón

Elizabeth Silvia Salmón Gárate is a Peruvian legal scholar and the current UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. She was appointed to the position in August 2022, succeeding Tomás Ojea Quintana [1]. Salmón is a Professor of International Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) [1] and holds a doctorate in international law from the University of Seville [2]. She previously served on Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and worked to establish peace in Colombia during the 2010s [2].

In February 2026, Salmón met with vice minister-level officials in the Lee Jae-myung administration in South Korea, a shift from ministerial-level meetings held during the previous government [3].

The Special Rapporteur submitted a report to the General Assembly in 2025, updating the human rights situation and outlining patterns of violations committed by the DPRK [4].