The UN takes a moment away from pillorying Israel

Even when the UN gets it right. . .

Kim Jong UnPhoto: AFP/Getty Images

It’s not news when we’re told North Korea is guilty of crimes against humanity on a scale without parallel in today’s world.

What is news is that the report comes via a world body that has long looked the other way: the United Nations. And the authors of the report know it.

The report was put together by a commission established by the UN Human Rights Council. The retired Australian judge who chaired the commission, Michael Kirby, described the challenge posed by its findings this way: “Too many times in this building there are reports but no action. Well, now is the time for action. We can’t say we didn’t know.”

So what is likely to happen? Nothing.

The report recommends its findings be turned over to the International Criminal Court, and warns Kim Jong-Un he could be personally prosecuted. That, alas, would require the approval of the Security Council — where Kim’s longtime defender, China, enjoys veto power.

The UN might also set up an ad-hoc tribunal, as it did with Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Cambodia. But Kim has refused to allow investigators to enter North Korea, and without co-operation from elements within the country, such a tribunal is unlikely.

Little wonder the report also notes that Pyongyang’s ability to commit such crimes over the course of decades with virtual impunity “raises question about the inadequacy of the international community.”

Indeed it does. And it suggests that a report which indicts the world’s last Stalinist state for its many barbarities may be even more damning for its exposure of the UN’s failure to do anything about them.