While military tensions on the Korean Peninsula show no signs of abating, international efforts continue to address North Korea's abysmal human rights situation.

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), a nonprofit organization based in Washington, said Friday it would hold a forum next week aimed at raising public awareness on the communist nation's human rights abuses.

With the theme of "Human Rights in Kim Jong-un's North Korea: Is progress possible?" the session will take place on Tuesday at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

To be discussed mainly are the nation's notorious political prison camps and the U.N. system pertinent to North Korean human rights, according to HRNK.

As many as 200,000 people are estimated to be held in those gulags, mostly in remote areas.

The HRNK has teamed up with DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite photo service firm, to locate the gulags.

Participants will include Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of HRNK, Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, Lee Sung-yoon, Kim Koo-Korea Foundation professor in Korean studies at the Fletcher School, and Joseph Bermudez, a senior analyst at DigitalGlobe Analytics.

The seminar will be co-hosted by the Fletcher School and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice.

It comes after the U.N. Human Rights Council launched an Independent Commission of Inquiry last week to investigate North Korea's "grave, widespread, systemic human rights violations." (Yonhap News)