An angry North Korea, now on the defensive over a US accusation of hacking, is refusing to take part in a groundbreaking UN Security Council meeting today where the country's bleak human rights situation will be discussed for the first time.
International pressure has built this year on Pyongyang after a sprawling UN-backed inquiry of alleged crimes against humanity and warned that young leader Kim Jong Un could be held accountable.
And attention has focused on the North in recent days, as the Obama administration on Friday blamed it for the devastating hacking attack on Sony over the film "The Interview," which portrays Kim's assassination.
Now the 15-member Security Council is being urged to refer North Korea's human rights situation to the International Criminal Court, seen as a court of last resort for atrocities.
It's the boldest effort yet to confront Pyongyang over an issue it has openly disdained in the past.
Instead of a showdown, North Korea says it will not attend today's meeting.
It accuses the US and its allies of using the human rights issue as a weapon to overthrow the leadership of the impoverished but nuclear-armed nation. It also calls the dozens of people who fled the North and aided the commission of inquiry "human scum."
If the council takes any action, "maybe we will take necessary measures," diplomat Kim Song told The Associated Press on Friday. He did not give details.
North Korea already sent a sharp warning last month, threatening further nuclear tests after the UN General Assembly's human rights committee voted to move the issue toward the Security Council, which can take binding actions on matters of international peace and security.
The council has had North Korea's nuclear program on its agenda for years, but today's meeting opens the door to wider discussion of abuses alleged in the recent inquiry, including starvation and a harsh political prison camp system of up to 120,000 inmates.
Pyongyang rejects the inquiry's findings but never allowed it into the country.
Two-thirds of the Security Council this month formally requested that North Korea's human rights situation be placed on the agenda for ongoing debate, saying rights violations "threaten to have a destabilizing impact on the region.
