Seoul: A South Korean human rights expert has been appointed as a member of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), an independent body that investigates arbitrary arrest and detention cases under a U.N. mandate, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Shin Hee-seok, a legal analyst of the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), will serve a three-year term as one of the five WGAD members, the ministry said in a release. Shin is the second Korean national to be appointed as a WGAD member, tasked with investigating possible human rights violations in cases of arbitrary detention and arrest by the state without due process.
The WGAD is also mandated to make recommendations on those cases. The U.N. Human Rights Council has mandated independent expert groups, known as "special procedures," like the WGAD, to investigate detention or imprisonment by the state in violation of international law, in countries including North Korea and Myanmar.