A/HRC/4/15 page 13 the situation of children with disabilities and street children who might be subjected to substandard institutionalization. The current critical food shortage is also likely to be severe for adults who do not have access to the Public Distribution System and/or outside aid. The decline of the latter has made elderly persons more vulnerable to deprivation. F. Responsibility: rights concerning the responsibility of the State authorities to protect human rights and freedoms, and related accountability 35. A key issue raised by many sources during 2006 was that of the responsibility of the authorities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for egregious human rights violations. The scenario was rendered more volatile by the missile and nuclear tests carried by the country which led to the adoption by consensus of Security Council resolutions imposing a variety of sanctions on the country. Interestingly, in the preamble to Council resolution 1718 (2006) imposing such sanctions, the issue of human rights is referred to indirectly by the emphasis on “other security and humanitarian concerns of the international community”. The end of 2006 also witnessed the adoption of resolutions on the country by the General Assembly. In its resolution 61/174 the Assembly expressed its very serious concern at continuing reports of human rights violations including torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and public executions; extrajudicial and arbitrary detention; the absence of due process of law and rule of law; forced labour; punishment of refugees forcibly returned from abroad; severe restrictions on the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association and on the access to information; violations of women’s rights such as human trafficking; abductions of foreigners; and violations of the rights of persons with disabilities including the use of detention. 36. The Assembly castigated the country for not cooperating with the Special Rapporteur and requested reports from both the Secretary-General and the Special Rapporteur at its next session. This may be an opportunity not only to provide the human rights situation analysis which the Special Rapporteur has undertaken to date, but also to open the door to other policy options in a broader United Nations context based on the totality of the United Nations system. 37. On another front, while welcoming the resumption of the six-party talks (between six countries including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, the Special Rapporteur notes that the latest session was convened and then suspended in December 2006. It will be recalled that in their September 2005 joint statement the parties stated that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, possibly to be complemented by economic development and security-related incentives. A positive atmosphere on that front would open the door to more humanitarian space with a constructive impact on human rights. 38. The non-governmental sector has put forward a number of ideas for addressing the responsibility of the country of origin. Some prefer the softer approach of engagement based on continuing humanitarian aid, while others are advocating a harder approach of responsibility and accountability. An example of the latter is based upon the notion of State responsibility to protect its people from egregious violations; this was introduced in the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit (General Assembly resolution 60/1):