The International Atomic Energy Agency voted this week to bring North Korea's nuclear violations before the United Nations Security Council. The move increases the pressure on Pyongyang; for that reason, some governments are concerned that North Korea will only respond with more belligerent behavior. The risk is real, but refusing to recognize the seriousness of Pyongyang's moves is even more dangerous. A failure to hold North Korea responsible for violations of international agreements could undermine the entire nuclear nonproliferation regime.

North Korea has always played fast and loose with its international obligations. Although it signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Pyongyang never allowed the special inspections required by the treaty. North Korea originally declared its intent to withdraw from the NPT when the United States discovered a clandestine nuclear weapons development program. A crisis in 1993 almost triggered a U.S. attack on suspected facilities. Instead it yielded the Agreed Framework, which allegedly capped the North's nuclear weapons program -- a claim that could not be guaranteed because Pyongyang never allowed the inspections that would answer vital questions.

The U.S. charge that North Korea violated the Agreed Framework with another nuclear weapons development program -- a charge the North has not denied -- is not the only international obligation that Pyongyang has broken. The clandestine effort also violates the NPT and the 1991 North-South declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.