There has been a ton of publicity regarding Dennis Rodman’s preposterous Happy Birthday Mr. Dictator tour on which Rodman visited North Korea’s paunchy dictator Kim Jong-Un to wish him many happy returns and many more years of human rights violations. Of course, no dictator’s birthday celebration would be complete without bottles of vodka and other gifts of tribute from has-been basketball stars.

The U.N. Panel report, which we previously reported here, included Rodman’s swag bags for Kim Jong-Un as violations of U.N. sanctions on North Korea, singling out bottles of vodka, Irish whisky, crystal decanters and glassware and a Mulberry handbag.  The Panel made clear that these all fell within the sanction’s definition of luxury goods which covers spirits, high-quality lead crystal glassware and high-quality handbags. Of course, notwithstanding the sanctions, I’d like to see a picture of Kim Jong-Un sporting the Mulberry handbag.

But the U.N. Panel also took the opportunity to swat the United States on the matter, noting that the United States had not reported these gifts to the panel. Paragraph 26 of Security Council Resolution 2094 requires member states to report evidence that the states have of non-compliance with the U.N. sanctions on North Korea. The United States was mum on the Rodman gifts, just as the United Kingdom did not report the sale of a Princess luxury yacht manufactured in Plymouth, England, to the Nork dictator.

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