The world has long been aware of North Korea’s repression and brutality against its citizens, through the stories of escapees and reports by human rights groups and the State Department. But a study by a special United Nations commission has produced the most authoritative indictment yet.

The report, released this month, accused North Korea’s government of crimes against humanity including murder, enslavement, torture, rape, forced abortions and persecution on political, racial and religious grounds. “The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” the commission said. It estimated that up to 120,000 political prisoners are detained in four camps and said starvation has been used to control and punish, both in the camps and in the general population. There is complete denial of freedom of thought, religion and movement. Women are forcibly trafficked from North Korea to China for forced marriages and prostitution.

The report might have provided even more detail had investigators been given access to North Korea, but the regime would never allow it. The commission compensated by holding hearings in Tokyo, London, San Francisco and Seoul, South Korea, taking public testimony from 80 witnesses and conducting 240 interviews with people who feared reprisals against families in the North. They told gruesome tales, including of guards clubbing starving children to death for stealing rice.

The report is a necessary reminder that while the United States, China and others have focused on the North’s nuclear program, the suffering of its people should not be ignored. The commission is supposed to present its findings formally to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva next month. The United Nations General Assembly, which meets later this year, should endorse the report and ask the Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. If that happened, Kim Jong-un could be tried and imprisoned, if anyone could get their hands on him.