The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to meet on December 15 to discuss North Korea's nuclear and missile program and conduct a separate meeting this December to discuss its human rights abuses.
According to Japan's ambassador to the UN and the current president of the Security COuncil for December Koro Bessho, several ministers have already confirmed their attendance to the December 15 meeting. He also remarked that the meeting for the human rights abuses of North Korea may be scheduled on December 11.
China has tried to stop three earlier human rights meetings by calling a procedural vote. A minimum of nine votes is required to win a vote and the five permanent members of the SC - China, Russia, France, Britain and the United States - cannot use their vetoes at this vote.
This year's annual meeting is backed by nine members, namely the US, France, Italy, Britain, Japan, Senegal, Ukraine, Uruguay and Sweden.
In 2016, the US angered North Korea for blacklisting North Korea premier Kim Jong Un for alleged human rights abuses. A report was also released in 2014 by the United Nations, reporting on the human rights abuses committed by the hermit kingdom and concluded that North Korea's security chiefs and the premier himself should face justice for overseeing a state-sanctioned system of atrocities.
In his statement for Reuters, Michael Kirby of the UN Commission of Inquiry - who was the one who drew the report - said that the team catalogued the crimes committed by North Korea and they were similar to the crimes committed by the Nazis during the Second World War. Kirby even said some of them are strikingly similar.
North Korea has repetitively rejected these accusations and blames the sanctions imposed by the UN and other countries for its humanitarian situation. North Korea has been under UN sactions since 2006.
In a statement on November 14, North Korea's Permanent Mission to the UN said that "Despite persistent sanctions and pressure by the US and other hostile forces, my government concentrates all its efforts on improving people's livelihood and providing them with a better future."
