South Korea must punish North Koreans for human rights violations, researcher says

SEOUL, May 26 (UPI) -- South Korea needs to be prepared to mete out justice to North Korean perpetrators of human rights violations, a researcher said Thursday.

Do Kyung-ok, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government think tank, said it's not only human rights violations that have taken place in the North that need to be addressed, but other crimes, including the abduction of foreign nationals that have taken place outside the country that need to be investigated, Yonhap reported.

To that end, a "human rights fact-finding system" needs to be established, according to the South Korean researcher.

Do was speaking at a conference following the passage of the North Korea Human Rights Act.

The law passed on March 2, 11 years after it was introduced in parliament. Opponents of the bill were concerned it would interfere with North-South détente.

North Korean defectors would be key sources of information in such a system, but non-Koreans who were once abducted by Pyongyang would also be at the center of investigations, Do said.

The South Korean system of investigation would use the standards of international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as guidelines, Doh said.

South Korean researchers have said about half of human rights abuses North Korean defectors experienced involve arbitrary arrest and detention.

The abuses also include restrictions on freedom of movement and access to food, according to the North Korea Human Rights Database Center, a nongovernmental organization.