The United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution that denounces North Korea's worsening human rights violations, including its brutal treatment of political prisoners in the communist country, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Adopted on Tuesday (New York time) by the Third Committee dealing with human rights issues, it was the U.N.'s 9th annual resolution on North Korean human rights and the second unanimously consented one, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

China, Russia, Cuba, Iran and Venezuela did not take part in the process to endorse the resolution led by the European Union and Japan.

This year's resolution detailed human rights violations in political prison camps in North Korea, calling for the immediate shutdown of the gulags as well as the unconditional release of prisoners there.

It also repeated calls made in previous resolutions that the country should not force North Korean defectors back to their home country and it should resolve the issue of Japanese and South Korean abductees in the communist country, according to the ministry.

Torture and illegal detention are still rampant while public execution is still going on in the country due to the lack of the rule of law, the resolution said.

The guilty-by-association system and human rights violations of women and children are also serious concerns, it noted.

The committee also welcomed the establishment of a U.N.-commissioned inquiry into the human rights violation records of North Korea in the resolution.

The three-men Commission of Inquiry interviewed many North Korean defectors in Seoul earlier this year as part of their efforts to verify the severe human rights violation allegations.

"The second straight consensus on the adoption of the North Korea human rights resolution indicates the gravity of the issue among the international community," the ministry said.

The resolution will be submitted to the U.N. General Assembly for a formal vote next year. (Yonhap News)