Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Mr. Evgeniy Zagaynov at the UN Security Council on the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

We have often expressed our opposition to the introduction of human rights issues into the Security Council’s agenda.

We believe that they are not within the Council’s remit and should be considered by the specialized bodies, first and foremost the Human Rights Council. The Security Council has never been part of the United Nations toolkit for protecting and promoting human rights. It was never intended to monitor or analyse situations in the area of human rights.

It has unique authority to take decisions on situations that may involve the potential use of force, among them situations that represent a threat to or a breach of peace or an act of aggression. Given that mandate, the Council cannot be a platform for discussions of human rights situations, wherever they are. No international document on human rights assigns the Security Council authority for oversight or any other function in that area.

The remit of the Security Council should be focused on issues that pose genuine threats to international peace and security, but if we regularly pad the agenda with non-core issues it will inevitably dissipate the Council’s attention and strength, reduce its effectiveness and encourage future accusations that it has exceeded its mandate, become politicized and is using double standards, leading to a weakening of trust in the Security Council in general.

With regard to the potential outcome of today’s meeting, the long-standing practice of the organs of the United Nations system concerning human rights is clear testament to the fact that politicized, country-specific resolutions and discussions have never yielded positive results, which can be achieved only by strengthening dialogue and interaction among countries, as has been demonstrated by attempts to discuss this issue here in the Council.

At this stage, the main goal of the Security Council is to create the conditions for resuming the negotiating process as soon as possible in the interests of arriving at political solutions to the problems of the Korean peninsula.

Our priority should be on finding a peaceful resolution to this problem. The present difficult situation should not be used as a pretext to increase foreign military potential in the region.

We call upon all parties to decrease tensions, avoid military rhetoric and quickly start a political process to find a way out of the impasse.