Pressed by reporters, he did not accuse Kim directly, but said that “everything comes together through the supreme leader,” and that the total number of perpetrators could be in the hundreds.
The United States welcomed the report, saying it “clearly and unequivocally documents the brutal reality” of North Korea’s abuses, while Seoul said it hoped the findings would raise international awareness.
But Pyongyang’s key ally China strongly opposed any move to refer North Korea’s leadership to the ICC, saying it would “not help resolve the human rights situation”.
Kirby said there was “no doubt” Chinese action was needed for a breakthrough, expressing the hope Beijing would see its abusive neighbour was “a danger to itself and its region.”
North Korea has long faced international sanctions over its atomic weapons programme, but activists said justice for its rights record was long overdue.
“By focusing only on the nuclear threat in North Korea, the Security Council is overlooking the crimes of North Korean leaders who have overseen a brutal system of gulags, public executions, disappearances, and mass starvation,” said Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.
The report condemned a system of throwing generations of the same family into prison camps under guilt-by-association rules, given testimony from former guards, inmates and neighbours.
It estimated that there are 80,000-120,000 political prisoners in North Korea, a nation of 24 million people.
Hundreds of thousands of others were believed to have perished in the camps over the past half century, “gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture,” the report said.
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