Explainer: What can the UN do if North Korea sends troops to Ukraine?

UNITED NATIONS - The United States, South Korea, Britain and Ukraine say

North Korea has sent troops to Russia

for possible deployment in Ukraine, a move the White House said on Oct 23 is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The Kremlin, which has been

waging war in Ukraine since February 2022,

and Pyongyang have denied that North Korean soldiers are in Russia.

What can the UN Security Council do if its sanctions on North Korea are being violated?

What happens if there is a violation?

North Korea has been under UN Security Council sanctions since 2006 and the measures have been steadily strengthened over the years with the aim of halting Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

The Security Council has a North Korea sanctions committee – made up of the 15 council members, including Russia – to “examine and take appropriate action on information regarding alleged violations”. It operates by consensus and can designate individuals and entities.

A Security Council member can also propose action through the adoption of a resolution, but that would require at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by Russia, China, the US, France or Britain.

What are some of the UN sanctions imposed on North Korea?

Under UN Security Council sanctions, countries are banned from “engaging in the hosting of trainers, advisers, or other officials for the purpose of military-, paramilitary- or police-related training”.

North Korea is also subject to an arms embargo.

How are UN sanctions monitored?

A panel of independent experts – appointed by the UN Secretary-General – monitored UN sanctions on North Korea for 15 years, reporting twice a year to the Security Council and recommending action to improve implementation of the measures.

The reports named individuals, entities and countries the experts were investigating or believed had violated sanctions.

While UN sanctions on North Korea are imposed indefinitely, the mandate of the panel experts is renewed annually by the council. In March, Russia vetoed that renewal – China abstained – and the experts stopped monitoring the enforcement of UN sanctions on North Korea on April 30.

Earlier in October, the US, South Korea and Japan launched a new multinational team to monitor the enforcement of sanctions against North Korea, a move that Pyongyang said was “utterly unlawful and illegitimate”.

Are Russia and China pushing to ease sanctions?

New UN sanctions against North Korea, already one of the most heavily sanctioned countries, are highly unlikely.

The last time the 15-member council imposed new sanctions on North Korea was in December 2017. Two years later, China and Russia put forward a draft resolution that would ease sanctions, in a bid to encourage talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

However, they did not put the draft resolution to a vote because diplomats said it had little support.

In November 2021, China and Russia revived their push to remove sanctions on key North Korean industries “with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population” in the isolated Asian state. The draft text has not been put to a vote.

The US then proposed strengthening UN sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches. But China and Russia vetoed the US-drafted resolution in May 2022, while the remaining 13 council members all voted in favour. REUTERS