U.S. and other Western ambassadors on the U.N. Security Council disclosed gruesome details of alleged human rights violations by North Korea at an unprecedented debate Monday and called for its leaders to be tried for crimes against humanity.
But the calls for referring Pyongyang and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the International Criminal Court for prosecution went unheeded after China and Russia urged against a vote their representatives said could only aggravate tension on the Korean Peninsula.
Although the majority of the 15-member council spoke damningly of the Pyongyang government's treatment of political prisoners and those caught trying to escape its galling poverty and isolation, China, joined by Russia, attempted to prevent the discussion of its ally's behavior in what Beijing considers domestic matters.
North Korea, which has refused to cooperate with the investigation of its rights record and has vowed retaliation if any action is taken, is already embroiled in a bitter confrontation with the United States over its suspected role in the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The commission report, based on interviews with more than 200 defectors and others who met clandestinely with investigators, concluded that North Korea's human rights abuses were "unparalleled" in the modern world for their savagery and scale.
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