The European Union and Japan proposed a new U.N. resolution Thursday that calls for referring the highest official responsible for North Korea's human rights violations to the International Criminal Court, a diplomatic source said.

Last year the U.N. General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution that calls for the U.N. Security Council to refer North's human rights abuses to the ICC. The resolution led to the Security Council adopting the issue as an official agenda item for the first time.

The new proposed resolution, which has been drafted jointly by South Korea, the United States, the European Union and Japan since early this month, was submitted to the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly on the eve of the deadline for new resolutions, the source said.

The draft was not made public but includes the ICC referral part just like last year's resolution, sources said.

The new resolution is also expected to include calls for punishing those responsible for human rights violations and resolving abductions and kidnappings, while voicing concerns about torture, public executions and other types of human rights abuses in the North, according to the sources.

It is also expected to include a sentence welcoming the Security Council's adoption of the issue as an official agenda item while calling for the council to hold discussions on it.

The move to adopt a new resolution is expected to anger North Korea.

But chances are not high for the Security Council to actually refer the issue to the ICC because China and Russia, which have friendlier ties with North Korea than any other countries, are expected to veto such a move. Still the resolution played a great role in drawing international attention to the issue.

North Korea has long been labeled one of the worst human rights violators. The communist regime does not tolerate dissent, holds hundreds of thousands of people in political prison camps and keeps tight control over outside information.

But the North has bristled at such criticism, calling it a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.

In June, the State Department said in its annual human rights report that the North's human rights record "remained among the worst in the world" last year, with public executions, political prison camps, torture and other abuses taking place in the country. (Yonhap)