Japan has asked the United Nations to make abductions by foreign institutions illegal when international regulations on coercive disappearances are drawn up in the near future, Japanese officials said Friday.
The request was apparently filed to make it clear that the abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea between 1977 and 1983 were in violation of international law.
Japan also called on the U.N. to include a clause in the new regulation that will ensure that abductees' children born in foreign countries return to their parents' home countries, the officials said.
The planned international standard was originally designed to handle coercive disappearances in international disputes or by dictatorship governments. Tokyo aims to expand its scope, however, to cover the abductions by North Korea.