Japan, the European Union, and other countries submitted a draft resolution Thursday to a committee of the U.N. General Assembly, denouncing North Korea's abduction of foreign nationals.
The draft, presented to the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with human rights, describes the abduction of foreign nationals in past decades as part of North Korea's "systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
The text also states that there are "unresolved questions of international concern relating to the abduction of foreigners in the form of an enforced disappearance, which violates the human rights of the nationals of the other sovereign countries."
While Japan had previously regarded the enforced disappearances as a matter of national concern, with the discovery that other nationals were similarly taken, the current text version reflects how the issue has international implications by saying that the committee should be "mindful of the need for the international community to strengthen its coordinated efforts."