North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year as punishment for challenging his authority.
South Korea's National Assembly on Wednesday passed its first legislation on human rights in North Korea, in a move that is expected to enrage its northern rival.
The bill's passage came shortly before the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved its toughest sanctions against North Korea in 20 years in response to the country's recent nuclear test and rocket launch.
A total of 212 South Korean lawmakers voted for the bill and 24 others abstained in the floor vote. It becomes law when it is endorsed by the Cabinet Council, considered a formality.
North Korea's state media has warned that enactment of the law would result in "miserable ruin."
The North's human rights situation is a global concern along with its nuclear and missile ambitions. A variety of bills on the issue have been proposed in the National Assembly in recent years, but were all spiked or stalled because of sharp divisions in South Korea over how to deal with North Korea.
Liberals have shied away from harsh criticism of the North's rights record due to worries that it might undermine efforts at reconciliation between the rivals. But the main opposition party eventually agreed on the bill's passage amid deepening international criticism of North Korea's nuclear test and rocket launch.
The bill would establish a center in South Korea's Unification Ministry tasked with collecting, archiving and publishing information about human rights in North Korea. It is required to transfer that information to the Justice Ministry, a step parliamentary officials say would provide legal grounds to punish rights violators in North Korea when the two Koreas eventually reunify.
The bill also requires the government to seek human rights talks with North Korea. A rights foundation would be set up to study humanitarian aid to the North and conduct rights surveys and other projects. Some critics say the foundation may assist civic groups that send leaflets or make radio broadcasts to North Korea to provide information to people about their authoritarian homeland.
North Korea views any outside criticism of its rights situation as part of a U.S.-led plot to overthrow its government, a reason why it says it needs nuclear weapons.
In 2014, a U.N. commission of inquiry on North Korea published a report laying out abuses such as a harsh system of political prison camps holding up to 120,000 people. The commission urged the Security Council to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court over its human rights record.
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