Michael Kirby, Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), briefs the press about the Commission's report which documents wide-ranging and ongoing crimes against humanity. Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25 2014 (IPS)

Has the world reached a stage where nuclear weapons may be used as bargaining chips in international politics?

So it seems, judging by the North Korean threat last week to conduct another nuclear test – if and when the 193-member U.N. General Assembly adopts a resolution aimed at referring the hermit kingdom to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for human rights abuses.

“If North Korea begins a game of nuclear blackmailing,” one anti-nuclear activist predicted, “will Russia not be far behind in what appears to be a new Cold War era?”

Dr. Rebecca Johnson, author of the U.N.-published book ‘Unfinished Business’ on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations, told IPS the larger danger – exemplified also by some of the rhetoric about nuclear weapons bandied around the crisis in Ukraine – is that nuclear weapons are not useful deterrents but are increasingly seen as bargaining chips, with heightened risks that they may be used to “prove” some weak leader’s “point”, with catastrophic humanitarian consequences.

She pointed out North Korea’s recent threat to conduct another nuclear test – its fourth – is unlikely to deter U.N. states from adopting a resolution to charge the regime of Kim Jong-un with crimes against humanity.

“North Korea’s nuclear sabre-rattling appears to draw from Cold War deterrence theories, but a nuclear test is not a nuclear weapon,” she added.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told the Security Council last May North Korea is the only country in the world that has conducted nuclear tests in the 21st century.

Since 2006, it has conducted three nuclear tests, the last one in February 2013 – all of them in defiance of the international community and the United Nations.

The resolution on North Korea, which is expected to come up before the U.N.’s highest policy making body in early December, has already been adopted by the U.N. committee dealing with humanitarian issues, known as the Third Committee.

The vote was 111 in favour to 19 against, with 55 abstentions in the 193-member committee. The vote in the General Assembly is only a formality.

Alyn Ware, a member of the World Future Council, told IPS: “Nuclear weapons should not be used as threats or as bargaining chips.”

Their use, after all, would involve massive violations of the right to life and other human rights.

However, he noted, this applies also to the other nuclear-armed states in the region (China, Russia and the United States) and states under extended nuclear deterrence doctrines (South Korea and Japan).

“The nuclear option should be taken off the table by establishing a North East Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,” he said.

And the states leading the human rights charges against North Korea should make it crystal clear that such charges are not an attempt to overthrow the North Korean government, he added.

The tensions between countries in the region, and the fact that the Korean War of the 1950s has never officially ended (only an armistice is in place), makes this a very sensitive issue, said Ware. If the General Assembly adopts the resolution, as expected, it is up to the 15-member Security Council to initiate ICC action on North Korea.

But both Russia and China are most likely to veto any attempts to drag North Korea to The Hague.

In an editorial Sunday, the New York Times said North Korea’s human rights abuses warrant action by the Security Council.

“Given what is in the public record, it is impossible to see how any country can defend Mr Kim and his lieutenants or block their referral to the International Criminal Court,” the paper said.

“As confidence in the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) continues to erode, has the time come to ban all nuclear weapons?” asked Dr Johnson.

She said “a comprehensive nuclear ban treaty would dramatically reduce nuclear dangers and provide much stronger international tools than we have today for curbing the acquisition, deployment and spread of nuclear weapons.”

The status some nations attach to nuclear weapons would soon be a thing of the past, nuclear sabre-rattling would become pointless, and anyone threatening to use these weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) would automatically face charges under the International Criminal Court, said Dr. Johnson, who is executive director and co-founder of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy.

“This might not stop nuclear blackmail overnight, but it would make it much harder for North Korea and any others to imagine they could gain benefits by issuing nuclear threats.”

As North Korea withdrew from the NPT over 10 years ago, and has already conducted three nuclear tests, it is unlikely that a threatened fourth test would be an effective deterrent, said Dr Johnson.

The U.N. resolution has been triggered by a report from a U.N. Commission of Inquiry on North Korea which recommended that leaders of that country be prosecuted by the ICC for grave human rights violations.

The commission was headed by Michael Kirby, a High Court Judge from Australia.

In a statement before the Third Committee last week, the North Korean delegate said the report of the Commission “was based on fabricated testimonies by a handful of defectors who had fled the country after committing crimes.

“The report was a compilation of groundless political allegations and had no credibility as an official U.N. document,” he added.

Ware told IPS, “I have a lot of respect for my colleague Michael Kirby from Australia, who led a year-long U.N. inquiry into human rights abuses which concluded that North Korean security chiefs, and possibly even Kim Jong Un himself, should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings.

“I find the response of the North Korean authorities to try to discredit his report due to his sexual orientation to be reprehensible,” he added. “Nor do I find credible the North Korean counter-claims that their human rights violations are non-existent, while the real human rights violator is the U.S. government.”

Ware said there are indeed human rights violations in the United States, but they pale in comparison to those in North Korea.

There is a body of U.S. civil rights law and legal institutions that provide protections for U.S. citizens even if it is not fully perfect nor implemented entirely fairly, he pointed out.

But there is a lack of such protection of civil rights in North Korea, with the result that the North Korean administration inflicts incredibly egregious violations of human rights with total impunity, according to Kirby’s report.

“I do not believe that the threat of a nuclear test by North Korea should deter the United Nations from addressing these human rights violations, including the possibility of referral to the International Criminal Court,” Ware declared.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

On the 100^th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, Europe is at peace. There are no major border disputes. The countries form a unified economic bloc instead of a patchwork of jostling alliances.

In the last 70 years, the only large-scale violence took place during the unraveling of Yugoslavia, which ended 15 years ago. In Sarajevo today, where World War I began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the residents endured a brutal siege in the 1990s, all is quiet on the Balkan front.China and Japan are on a collision course. If they don’t find a way to back down and save face, no amount of historical knowledge and mutual commerce will prevent an Asian march of folly.

Not so in Asia. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently compared the brewing conflict between his country and China to the Anglo-German relationship of 1914. In both cases, the two countries maintained economic relations even as they built up their respective militaries. The trade relationship between Britain and Germany didn’t prevent a catastrophic war from breaking out.

Japan and China have a long history of conflict. In the 13^th century, Mongol China attempted to invade Japan on two occasions and was defeated both times by the kamikaze or “divine winds” of two separate typhoons. In the late 16^th century, Japan invaded Korea with an eye toward conquering China but was ultimately forced to retreat.

In the modern era, the two countries went to war in 1894, and it took only nine months for Japan to come out on top, with Taiwan as the prize. It was the beginning of Japan’s ascent to empire. It would later annex Korea, expand its influence in China during World War I, seize Manchuria, and go on to capture China’s major cities in the lead-up to World War II.

Asian historians frequently cite the Chinese proverb that “two tigers cannot share a mountain” when discussing the quest for dominance by Japan and China over the last 1,000 years. For the most part, the two tigers have traded dominion over the region. In the last few years, however, a resurgent Japan and a still growing China have found themselves on the same mountain. Abe’s reference to 1914, despite his other pleas for peace and stability in the region, suggests that a serious clash is in the offing.

The Japanese prime minister expressed his greatest concern over Chinese military spending. Having increased its defence budget by double digits annually over the last two decades, China now spends more on its military than any country in the world except the United States (which still spends approximately four times more than China). Japan, meanwhile, is the fifth leading military spender. The Abe government recently announced a five-percent increase in the country’s military budget over the next five years.

The spark that might set off a replay of 1914 in Asia is the ongoing conflict over an island chain in the East China Sea called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The uninhabited islands are no bigger than seven square kilometres in total. Japan currently controls the territory and dates its sovereignty claim to its defeat of China in 1895. China, however, argues that the chain was part of its domain during the preceding history. Taiwan also asserts sovereignty over the islands.

The islands themselves are less important than the sea around them. Japan and China are primarily interested in the fishing grounds, the potential oil beneath the waves, and control over shipping routes. In 2008, the two countries negotiated a deal on joint exploration of oil around the islands but never implemented the agreement. Collisions have taken place at sea, notably in 2010 between a Chinese fishing boat and a Japanese patrol, and the Japanese government has threatened to shoot down Chinese drones that have approached the islands.

The historical allusion to 1914 is troubling in another regard. Europe, prior to World War I, had enjoyed nearly a century of muted rivalry as part of the Concert of Europe that regulated relations among empires in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat.

The dispute between China and Japan similarly takes place within a balance of power that has held in Northeast Asia, more or less, since the end of the Korean War. China and North Korea stand together as uneasy allies on one side – along with the occasional participation of Russia – and Japan, South Korea, and the United States form an alliance on the other.

World War I rapidly escalated because alliance obligations drew the major powers into a war that they might ordinarily have kept at arm’s length. The United States has an alliance obligation to stand with Japan in the event of a clash with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

Shinzo Abe has given every indication that he will not back down on this issue. He has cultivated the image of a proud nationalist. He has burnished this reputation at home and provoked his neighbors by visiting Yasukuni Shrine, where the souls of 14 Class A war criminals are enshrined. He has pledged to revise his country’s “peace constitution” and restore a true offensive capability to Japan’s Self-Defence Forces. He has pushed through a new law to establish a National Security Council and more strictly control domestic dissent.

This nationalism goes hand in hand – rather than in opposition to – U.S. security strategy. Although the Yasukuni visit and the harsher rhetoric toward China have displeased Washington, Abe has in other regards conducted an all-out charm offensive toward his U.S. ally. The military budget increase includes the purchase of 28 F-35 fighter jets and two Aegis-equipped destroyers. And a carefully calibrated promise of economic investment into Okinawa turned around the prefectural governor’s position on the construction of a new U.S. military base on the island, which has been a major sticking point in U.S.-Japanese relations.

There are many reasons why 1914 is not an apt analogy for the situation in Northeast Asia today. The region, unlike Europe of 100 years ago, is not unbalanced by empires in decline. The presence of nuclear weapons is both a deterrent to escalation and also a guarantee that all-out war would have immediate, global consequences. And the earlier experience of World War I ensures that no national leader can pretend that the next conflict will be the “war to end all wars.”

But wars are not rational affairs. China and Japan are on a collision course. If they don’t find a way to back down and save face, no amount of historical knowledge and mutual commerce will prevent an Asian march of folly.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice speaks to journalists following the Mar. 7 adoption of a Security Council resolution condemning the Feb.12 nuclear test by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and imposing new sanctions on that country. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Thalif Deen and Jim Lobe
UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON, Mar 8 2013 (IPS)

North Korea, which has survived three rounds of diplomatic and economic sanctions since its first nuclear test in 2006, reacted with predictable fury, threatening to nuke the United States, in retaliation for a Security Council resolution imposing new sanctions against Pyongyang.

The White House dismissed the threat. “I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney Thursday.If the U.S. and the other nuclear powers finally got serious about a nuclear weapons-free world, this sort of thing would no longer happen.

After the unanimous 15-0 Security Council Thursday, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice assured delegates the new punitive measures, including an effort to counter the abuse of diplomatic privileges to advance North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile activities, will “bite – and bite hard.”

“It will now be much harder for such diplomats to procure technology or divert funds to the nuclear programme without being detected and expelled,” she told the Security Council.

The resolution, which was jointly drafted by the United States and North Korea’s political ally China in reaction to Pyongyang’s Feb. 12 underground nuclear test, also bans the transfer to and from North Korea of specific ballistic missile, nuclear, and chemical weapons-related technology.

The resolution empowers countries to inspect suspicious North Korean cargo traversing their national territory as part of the enforcement regime. It also freezes financial transactions that could help Pyongyang’s nuclear or weapons-related programmes.

Independent analysts said it was difficult to predict the impact of the new sanctions – the most far-reaching against Pyongyang to date – on North Korea’s behaviour.

“If you look at these sanctions in addressing banking in a more serious way and also inspections of planes and ships going through national territory, there’s a potential for these to actually impinge far more than previous sanctions,” said Alan Romberg, East Asia programme director at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank. “But whether they will do so will depend on their implementation.

“One of the things people are concerned about is that, in the past, China has not been as rigorous in implementing sanctions as might have been hoped. We’ll have to see what it will do in this case,” according to Romberg, who previously served as senior Northeast Asia official in the U.S. State Department.

Peter Weiss, president of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, told IPS that since North Korea’s idea of diplomacy is totally sui generis, predicting its reaction to Thursday’s Security Council resolution “would be like predicting tomorrow’s weather when all the meteorological data have become unavailable”.

The fact that China co-authored the resolution with the United States, would lead one to believe it may have some effect, he added.

“But the only thing I would take a bet on is that if the U.S. and the other nuclear powers finally got serious about a nuclear weapons-free world, this sort of thing would no longer happen,” said Weiss, who is also co-president of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.

Asked whether the repeated patterns of provocations/sanctions would work if the sanctions are not fully implemented, Rice told reporters: “The choice and the answer to your question lies of course with the decisions that the North Korean leadership make.”

“We have been very clear as an international community and as a Security Council that we are united in demanding that North Korea comply with its obligations or face increased pressure and isolation,” she added.

For his part, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, praised the Council’s actions, insisting that it “sent an unequivocal message to (North Korea) that the international community will not tolerate its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

The latest round of sanctions came only three weeks after North Korea’s nuclear test, the first conducted under the auspices of the country’s young new leader, Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang’s two previous nuclear tests – in 2006 and 2009 – also provoked U.N. sanctions whose implementation, however, has been uneven.

They include an arms embargo on North Korea and a prohibition on trade with it involving nuclear or missile technology, as well as a ban on the export of luxury goods to the country. The new resolution adds to these measures and closes a loophole that until now had permitted countries to decide what constitutes a “luxury good”.

The new resolution blacklists specific goods, including yachts, racing cars, high-priced automobiles and certain kinds of jewelry, among other items.

While most officials both at the U.N. and in Washington consider North Korea’s new threats as bravado, they are concerned about a sharp rise in tensions on the Korean Peninsula itself.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries are currently conducting joint manoeuvres that are scheduled to intensify over the next week. As it became clear over the past several days that Washington and Beijing had agreed on a new sanctions resolution, Pyongyang’s rhetoric became increasingly bellicose.

It called the impending sanctions an “act of war” and declared that the armistice that halted the Korean War 1953 would expire Mar. 11.

At the same time, Seoul’s newly elected president, Park Geun-hye, who pledged during her campaign to pursue a somewhat softer policy toward Pyongyang than her hard-line predecessor, took office only two weeks ago, and analysts are concerned that the North’s leadership may be tempted to take some form of military action to test her intentions.

But the major question hovering over the impact of the new U.N. sanctions is how vigorously China, on which Pyongyang relies almost exclusively for its fuel and other vital supplies, will enforce them.

The fact that it took only three weeks for China to agree on co-sponsoring the sanctions resolution – a much shorter period than with previous round of sanctions – was taken as a sign that Beijing is increasingly losing patience with the Pyongyang regime.

The language and tone were also tougher, according to Romberg, who said it “reflected great frustration with the way North Korea is proceeding”.

“The strategic concerns that lie behind China’s North Korea policy have not changed – that is, to avoid either chaos in the North or an outcome that would mean unification under South Korean leadership allied to the United States,” he told IPS.

“But as we are seeing in many Chinese commentaries on the subject, quite a number of people are questioning whether continuing Chinese support for North Korea is in the PRC’s best interest.”

Indeed, Mao Xinyu, the only grandson of China’s revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, and a major general in the People’s Liberation Army, called this week on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

“North Korea must go towards denuclearisation and peaceful development,” the Xinhua news agency quoted Mao saying Tuesday. North Korea’s denuclearisation, he added, “is the cherished wish of the Chinese people.”

Meanwhile, the top U.S. envoy on North Korea, Glyn Davies, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Washington shared that wish.

“The United States will not engage in talks for the sake of talks,” he said. “Authentic and credible negotiations …require a serious, meaningful change in North Korea’s priorities demonstrating that Pyongyang is prepared to meet its commitments and obligations to achieve the core goal of the September 2005 Joint Statement: the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.”

Kim Sung-hwan, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea and President of the Security Council for the month of February, delivers a Council press statement strongly condemning the nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2013 (IPS)

North Korea, which conducted its third nuclear test Monday, is following closely in the heavy footsteps of Israel as one of the world’s most intransigent nations, ignoring Security Council resolutions and defying the international community.

“Israel has the United States as its patron saint,” says a Middle Eastern diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, “and North Korea has China’s protective arm as an enduring shield.”

Still, three Security Council resolutions – in 2006, 2009 and 2013 – critical of North Korea’s nuclear programme and tightening sanctions on Pyongyang – had the blessings of China, a permanent member with veto powers."Giving status to those who flout the world's collective security treaties such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the NPT is like a slap in the face to the law-abiding majority..."

But the harshest of possible sanctions – a naval blockade, an oil embargo or a cutoff of economic aid from China – have escaped Security Council resolutions, at least so far.

The 15-member Council met in an emergency session Tuesday and issued a predictable statement condemning the test as “a grave violation” of its three resolutions and describing North Korea as a country which is “a clear threat to international peace and security”.

When the Council adopted its third resolution last January, it expressed a determination to take “significant action” in the event of a “further” nuclear test by North Korea.

But that “significant action” will have to wait another day.

On Tuesday, the Council claimed it “will begin work immediately on appropriate measures” in an upcoming, possibly watered down, resolution.

Currently, there are five declared nuclear weapon states, namely the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China, all five permanent members of the Security Council (P5), along with three undeclared nuclear weapon states, India, Pakistan and Israel.

The three undeclared nuclear powers have all refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as against the five declared nuclear powers who are states parties to the treaty.

Dr. Rebecca Johnson, co-chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told IPS that the logic and optics of nuclear deterrence means that North Korea’s tests are designed to convince the United States (at least) that it has the ability to make and deliver nuclear warheads.

“It is entirely counterproductive to talk about the countries that conduct nuclear tests or deploy nuclear weapons as ‘nuclear powers’ – giving status to those who flout the world’s collective security treaties such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the NPT is like a slap in the face to the law-abiding majority – over 180 countries – that have renounced nuclear weapons and testing,” she added.

The nuclear-armed states – whether defined under the NPT or posturing outside the NPT like North Korea – are security problems for the world, she said.

And North Korea has demonstrated once again that nuclear weapons are what weak leaders think they need to divert attention from their failed economic and social policies at home, said Johnson, author of “Unfinished Business”, the authoritative book on the CTBT published by the United Nations in 2009.

Asked if the test proves that North Korea, also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is ready to go nuclear, Phillip Schell, researcher on the Nuclear Weapons Project, Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told IPS Tuesday’s test doesn’t prove that North Korea is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, comparable to the P5.

However, the series of three tests – although the first one is widely believed to have been a failure – certainly indicate progress in the DPRK’s nuclear weapons programme, he said.

At the same time, while it appears to be the DPRK’s goal is to develop a miniaturised nuclear warhead that could be fitted on a ballistic missile, there have been no signs so far that the DPRK has actually achieved “weaponisation” of the nuclear devices that were tested.

Whether the DPRK currently possesses the necessary long-range missile technology is also doubtful, he said. However, the successful launch of a multi-stage rocket suggests that it is gradually mastering such technology.

Schell also pointed out that the DPRK withdrew from the NPT (although some states don’t recognise its withdrawal). Furthermore, it did not sign or ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

However, the Security Council Resolutions 1718, 1874, and 2087 prohibit DPRK from conducting future nuclear tests or launches that involve ballistic missile technology. These resolutions, said Schell, are de facto legally binding. On the other hand, the DPRK sees these as discriminatory.

Asked about the DPRK argument that its nuclear tests are few and far between compared to all the nuclear tests conducted by the P5, Johnson told IPS this argument is “specious nonsense”.

“Do we absolve a murderer who argues that he only occasionally kills people, contrasting this with the mass murders carried out by serial killers and other criminals? Of course not.”

She said that just as each act of murder is a crime, each nuclear test violates international treaties, laws and collectively agreed means for establishing global security.

“The fact that others sinned with impunity before the international community could establish the nuclear test ban treaty is no excuse now,” Johnson said.