Mick Hartley

The fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of North Korea’s human rights record at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this month made a number of ecommendations. They were all, of course, rejected by Pyongyang:

In the UPR draft report circulated on November 11, 2024, North Korea effectively rejected 88 recommendations, including those calling for cooperating with UN human rights mechanisms, ending torture, releasing political prisoners, ending forced labor, and ensuring the right to freedom of expression.

“North Korea’s rejection of so many recommendations to improve its human rights record demonstrates its government’s utter disregard for international human rights standards and the rights of the North Korean people,” said Simon Henderson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The North Korean government needs to end its brutal repression of fundamental rights and end its people’s increasing isolation from the world.”

But the UPR may have had some effect – on the issue of public executions. From the Daily NK:

Kim Jong Un has issued orders to North Korea’s security ministries to establish clearer criteria for both public and private executions. These directives were delivered to the legal departments of the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Social Security on Nov. 13.

Executions in North Korea are held either in public or behind closed doors, with public executions serving as an important means of fomenting public fear to maintain the regime.

The latest orders from Kim Jong Un are to more clearly differentiate public and closed-door executions and to impose stricter standards for party safety committees at the regional and central levels to use when deciding whether to execute somebody.

“Until now, decisions to carry out an execution by party safety committees at the regional level had been swiftly authorized without a comprehensive review at the central level. But in the future, those decisions will have to be reviewed more carefully and comprehensively approved by central law enforcement agencies,” a source in North Korea told Daily NK recently….

However, some North Korean officials seem to feel that public executions are necessary for controlling the public.

“Some state security agents say that public executions are effective at keeping people alert. Others say it’s impossible to change people’s belief that their lives depend more on the words of Kim Jong Un than on the law,” the source said.

Intriguingly, these orders were given after the U.N.’s fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of North Korean human rights, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 7.

North Korea acknowledged its practice of public executions in the UPR review. A representative said that executions in principle are carried out behind closed doors, but that there may be exceptions. That indicates that the North continues to use public executions as a method of regime preservation and public control.

“North Korea sought to justify itself both in the third and fourth UPRs by saying that heinous criminals could be publicly executed when desired by the victims’ families,” said Shin Hee-seok (Ethan Shin), legal analyst at Transitional Justice Working Group. “But the latest orders show nonetheless that North Korea is working to reduce public executions in light of criticism from the international community.”

Shin added: “The fact that Kim Jong Un’s orders don’t mention the wishes of victims’ families arouses suspicions that all that talk about victims’ families at the U.N. was just window dressing. It’s also worth noting that this confirms that decisions about public executions are approved by party safety committees.”

"Public executions are approved by party safety committees". Only in North Korea.

No real change, of course. Executions, both public and behind closed doors, will continue as usual. But…interesting. Some more legalistic window dressing, it's now felt, is required for maintaining the practice of ensuring a terrified populace by means of regular public displays of state violence.