SEOUL, May 10 (Yonhap) -- The International Criminal Court (ICC) may intervene with allegedly widespread human rights violations in North Korea if the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) makes a formal request for it to do so, the court's president said Friday.
"It is possible to intervene with North Korea's human rights issues when the UNSC refers the case to the court," Song Sang-hyun, the South Korean-born head of the Hague-based court said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul.
Citing two situations in Sudan and Libya that the ICC had handled at the request of the world body, Song cautiously laid out a scenario that the North may still be referred to the court, although the communist country is not a state party to the international tribunal.
In March, the U.N. Human Rights Council expanded its investigation into alleged human rights abuses known to be prevalent in North Korea, including torture in political prison camps, in a move viewed as largely symbolic but significant in sending a message to Pyongyang.
Song acknowledged that it would be legally difficult to bring North Korea to the court as long as it is not its member state.
However, he stressed that an arrest warrant issued by the court will subject an individual or individuals responsible to various restrictions.
"The accused has to be cautious when traveling to member states of the ICC because such nations have legal obligations to arrest and send him or her to the ICC," he said, adding that an ICC arrest warrant has no statute of limitations or cause for immunity.
As to an ongoing review of deadly North Korean attacks on a South Korean warship and island, Song said ICC prosecutors are "working very hard."
The Office of the Prosecutor in the ICC opened a preliminary examination in December 2010 to determine whether the North's shelling of the South's Yeonpyeong Island in November of that year and the sinking of the warship Cheonan in March "constitute war crimes."
Forty-six sailors on board the Cheonan and four people on the western border island, including two civilians, were killed in the attacks.
"It is rather difficult for me to give you updates regarding the examination," Song said, stating that ICC prosecutors are working very hard.
Song, a professor-emeritus at Seoul National University and former visiting professor at Harvard Law School, was re-elected as the head of the ICC last March for a three-year term.
The ICC is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. It came into being in 2002 and now has 122 countries as its signatories.
The court has sometimes been blamed for prosecuting only African countries. Song refuted such claims, saying that of eight African nations tried at the ICC, four were referred by the concerned state parties themselves, two were referred by the UNSC, and that only two were prosecuted by the ICC.
The court also came under fire for its slow pace of proceedings that has frustrated many seeking instantaneous justice.
"The ICC is working hard to relieve the issue and will come up with a better solution to make a speedy trial," Song said.
Song is the first South Korean to lead the tribunal. His term ends in 2015.
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