North Korea is threatening to conduct a fourth nuclear weapons test in response to the United Nations Human Rights Committee recommending Pyongyang be hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague for human rights abuses.

There’s been suspicious activity at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility that has been interpreted as the possible resumption of producing weapons-grade plutonium.  However, South Korea’s defense chief said Thursday he does not expect North Korea to carry out a nuclear test “at an early date”.

A human rights trial at the ICC could only be brought about if the Security Council makes a specific request of the ICC.  North Korea’s only friend in the world China and Russia hold the veto power to prevent it from ever happening.  North Korea’s critics say that the Security Council should vote on it anyway.

“If they want to be seen defending the human rights record of the worst human rights offender on the planet, let them do so in public and pay a price,” said Sue Mi Terry, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute and a former intelligence officer with the United States government, who specializes in North Korea.

A UN report released earlier this year accused North Korea of committed “unspeakable atrocities” such as murder, generational punishment, kidnapping of defectors, and torture.