A panel of the UN General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly adopted a draft resolution expressing 'serious concern' at reports of 'systemic, widespread and grave violations of human rights' in North Korea.
The vote in the 192-member assembly's third committee dealing with human rights issues was 91 in favour, 21 against, with 60 abstentions.
For the first time in recent years, South Korea voted to support the text, as did the United States, Japan and the European Union.
China and Russia voted against the resolution, which was sponsored by Japan and the 25-member European Union.
South Korea had abstained in four previous UN votes on the issue. But it has come under growing pressure to take a tougher stance since North Korea conducted missile tests in July and its first-ever nuclear test last month.
North Korea's deputy UN ambassador, Kim Chang Guk, on Friday blasted the resolution as "a product of a political plot of the US and its satellite countries".
"It is none other than a political plot-breeding document fabricated by the US to cover up its base human rights campaign against the DPRK (North Korea)," he noted.
The resolution says abuses include "torture, public executions, extra judicial and arbitrary detention, the absence of due process and the rule of law, the imposition of the death penalty for political reasons, the existence of a large number of prison camps and the extensive use of forced labour".
It asks the UN secretary general to submit a comprehensive report on the human rights situation in North Korea. Ban Ki-Moon, South Korea's former foreign minister, is set to take office as the UN chief in January.
It highlights "all-pervasive and severe restrictions on freedoms of thought, conscience, religion and expression" and "continuing violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women".