A Russian veto has terminated the UN Panel of Experts, a subsidiary body established pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which followed North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006.
For fifteen years, the Panel of Experts reported on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, the threat they posed to international peace and security, and the illicit procurement of resources fueling the regime’s tools of death.
Several HRNK Board members react to this distressing development, deploring the failure to renew the Panel’s mandate and calling on the UN to establish an alternative monitoring procedure:
Rabbi Abraham Cooper (Chair, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom)
- “Russia’s move to becloud ongoing human rights outrages committed by its ally North Korea must be countered by the United Nations and other member states. Let Secretary-General Guterres announce that he is appointing a personal envoy or rapporteur. Otherwise, the downward moral spiral of the UN will only accelerate.”
The Honorable Jack David (Senior Fellow & Trustee, Hudson Institute)
- “North Korea is the world’s worst human-rights abuser of its own people, even as it threatens the rest of the world with its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The Russian veto bringing an end to the UN Panel of Experts, which helped address the North Korean missile and nuclear threat, is morally repugnant and should be condemned.”
Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt (Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute)
- “It should be no surprise that the Kremlin just sabotaged sanctions monitoring for North Korea. Pyongyang is now a supplicant state for Putin, supplying arms for his invasion of Ukraine and cheering for his victory. Countries of conscience must impel the UN to continue to shine a light on the Kim regime’s crimes and the villains who finance them, despite this latest betrayal by Moscow.”
Ambassador Robert Joseph (Senior Scholar, National Institute for Public Policy)
- “By abetting North Korea’s ongoing evasion of sanctions, Putin’s Russia has become even more complicit in Pyongyang’s many crimes. It is imperative that all civilized nations endeavor to monitor and enforce sanctions imposed on the Kim regime, the world’s most grievous offender of human rights.”
Ambassador Jung-Hoon Lee (Dean, Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies)
- “Russia sabotaging the renewal of a UN panel that monitors the enforcement of international sanctions against North Korea is egregious, cowardly, and simply irresponsible. Will the world ever see a Russia deserving of its privileged P5 status?”
Ambassador Winston Lord (Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State)
- “Russia’s sabotaging of sanctions on North Korea is as ugly as it is unsurprising. The United Nations must find another way to monitor compliance, as well as continuing to shine a light on the world’s worst human rights landscape.”
Colonel David Maxwell, USA, Ret. (Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy)
- “Russia, as a founding member of the axis of dictators, again demonstrates that it is not a responsible member of the international community as it exposes its collaboration with the mafia-like crime family cult of the Kim regime and uses its veto power to protect Kim Jong-un’s malign activities. The international community spends too much time worrying about what Putin and Kim might do. Instead, the international community should make them worry about what it is capable of doing, and that it has the will to do it.”
Dr. Suzanne Scholte (President, Defense Forum Foundation)
- “The UN Panel of Experts has done a vital service for the international community in documenting the Kim regime’s evasion of UN sanctions, its illicit activities, and cybercrimes that have enabled the DPRK to develop nuclear weapons while the North Korean people starve. Putin’s decision to end this vital initiative shows his further embrace of the brutal Kim dictatorship, which has been found guilty of crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights by the UN’s own inquiry.”
General John H. Tilelli Jr., USA, Ret. (Former Commander, UNC/CFC/USFK)
- “Once again, Russia has proven that it is not a reliable, stable, or rational member of the international community. Russia’s new coalition with the Kim family regime demonstrates Putin’s self-interest rather than the greater good, and again defines for us the ‘Axis of Evil.’ The UN must take a different approach when one member state blocks issues that affect international peace and security.”
