First of all, in relation to regime collapse or regime change, please keep in mind that we were officers of the United Nations. North Korea, DPRK, is a member of the United Nations. It has signed the Charter of the United Nations, with its strong commitments to peace and security, economic equity, and universal human rights. North Korea has also signed a large number of the treaties of the United Nations on human rights.

It was not part of our work, nor did we ever suggest, that there should be a regime change as a precondition for change. The simple point we made was that nobody has to be a member of the United Nations—it's not obligatory—but if you do become a member, you are subject to the obligations of the charter and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the human rights treaties that you join. Therefore, we were extremely careful never to suggest or speak about regime change, because that would have been disrespectful to a member state of the United Nations.

As to what will happen in the future, that is a matter on which whole libraries of books have been written; there's a great interest in it. However, our recommendations are addressed to getting North Korea to change itself, to accept the principles of the international instruments. If they don't, then the R2P principle, which was adopted in 2005 by all the member states, heads of government, and heads of state who were present at the General Assembly of the United Nations, commits other member states of the United Nations to take over where the relevant country is failing and to do what can be done to ensure that accountability for great crimes and improvements in human rights can be achieved.

There have been tiny improvements. For example, North Korea has signed, but not yet executed the disability convention. As well, prior to that, North Korea did not have any people with disabilities evident in Pyongyang. It was to be the perfect city, a model city; whereas now you will see people in wheelchairs in Pyongyang. So there are small changes, including engagement with the universal periodic review. If that continues, that's an improvement.

The Russian ambassador said to us, when we called on him in Geneva, that where there is credit due, give credit. We always gave credit where we could see it. I have to confess that it was small pickings. There were not many instances where we could sincerely say that we saw any improvement in the human rights situation in North Korea. Our report is a melancholy tale of serious abuses in terms of all of the 10 heads of our mandate, and crimes against humanity on a number of them, which demand action by the international community.

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