The names and faces of government officials and business leaders in the presidential entourage for this week’s third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang send a clear message as to how serious we are about the two Koreas’ economic cooperation projects. To start with, it includes eight minister-level officials. Also joining are corporate leaders from Samsung, LG, SK, Hyundai and Posco, among others. Not only that, the CEOs of KDB, Korail and Kepco are flying North as well. With entourage members of t

Global trading norms have traditionally adopted a bifurcated approach: goods trade and services trade. These still constitute the two main pillars of trade agreements. Now, a fundamental change is in the offing. The arrival of artificial intelligence and the internet of things is now blurring the conventional line between goods and services. The two are now often combined, converged and integrated in one medium or product. Goods provide services, and services in turn put more goods for sale. Con

It was about 10 years ago when I visited Baku, Azerbaijan, several times, right by the Caspian Sea. A seaward view from the city was like that of any other city at the tip of an ocean. Its vastness matches almost that of the Black Sea, with five countries bordering it. The sea contains a variety of fish. Rich pockets of gas and oil, you bet. Beaches, of course. It even has salty water. In a sense, it contains everything a ‘sea’ would have. Except one thing: an outside route. It is landlocked. Th

Maybe it was just an honest mistake. A typical “rules of origin” confusion or infraction. Origin faking or laundering is not new to customs officials at the border, so importers may have believed that the coal shipments really originated from Russia. The low price and unusual loading port (Kholmsk, Sakhalin) may not have been sufficient to raise a red flag for the importers and the government.Coal arrived at Korean ports and was put into the stream of commerce. This took place last October.What

“We declare that the war is finally over and that interested parties will seek to establish a peace regime on the peninsula” or something along the line will be the gist of an official ‘declaration’ to terminate the Korean War. As encapsulated in the title, it is just a declaration -- a political, diplomatic statement without binding legal effect. Even if adopted, it itself does not change the present Armistice Agreement. So, it is an easy target. At least so it seemed. After the sluggish meetin

Use, separate and forget. These three words best describe plastic consumption in Korea. We use plastics a lot; we separate them meticulously; and then we forget.Korea uses plastic products heavily -- 420 plastic bags per person in 2015, which is six times more than Germany and 100 times more than Finland. Besides, our local governments operate such an efficient system of garbage separation and collection -- residents and households carefully read manuals and sort plastics. And that is pretty muc

What is work and what is leisure? This longstanding philosophical question has suddenly become a legal question as a new labor law (Labor Standards Act) is entering into force on July 1 to cap the maximum weekly working hours at 52, together with a penalty provision for non-complying employers. Having realized the unclear dividing line between work and non-work and the fear of imminent confusion on the field, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced at the last minute a six-month grace per

Jeju Island has become a hot potato inside the Korean government. On the same day the Ministry of Justice listed Yemen as a state whose nationals are not permitted to enter the sub-tropical island without a visa, the National Human Rights Commission issued a strong statement urging agencies in charge to take more active measures to protect the basic rights of the refugees from Yemen staying on the island. Both happened on June 1.It all started with a recent surge of Yemeni refugees entering the

Since about a week ago, a new batch of emails have started to fill my inbox. The senders are various entities -- publishing companies, journals, academic organizations, law firms, and even airlines -- in Europe and in Korea.These emails ask for my consent to store and process my personal information such as contact details, dues payment, membership record, and the like. The senders all refer to the new regulation of the European Union called the General Data Protection Regulation that entered in

“Betwixt and between” is the term that best describes South Korea when it comes to determining the legal status of North Korea. In the South’s legal system, North Korea is not regarded as an independent, separate state. Our Constitution describes “the whole Korean Peninsula and adjacent islands” as the territory of the Republic of Korea; hence its northern part is simply considered an unrecovered territory under the temporary rule of a rebellious entity. And yet, Seoul has had to deal with Pyong

Last Friday South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un met at the truce village of Panmunjeom for their first summit. At this crucial encounter, many things were put on the table as a prelude to the United States-North Korea summit meeting scheduled toward the middle of June possibly in Singapore. Most notably, the two Koreas’ leaders adopted a joint communique in which they promised to pursue official termination of the Korean War within the year followed by a peac

As Artificial Intelligence is rippling through every corner of our lives, ethical challenges and philosophical issues are also coming our way. The most important question is: what is the outer limit of the AI technology? Recent incidents involving AI in the military sector offer some silhouette of a possible answer.Now, AI is making an inroad into the defense industry. Autonomous weapons are becoming a reality. Taken to its technical extreme, it will not be too long before we see fully autonomou

All of a sudden, last Friday felt different. Not because it was Friday. Something was obviously different: the air became finally breathable after a miserable week. The level of fine dust (or ultrafine dust) had been the talk of the town throughout the week at meetings and gatherings.A 2017 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development put South Korea’s fine dust level near the bottom of the countries surveyed, which in fact prompted President Moon to include this issue i

Is it indeed a ray of hope we are seeing? Or another big scam? There is conflicting information. Experts’ views diverge sharply. Still, memories of betrayal remain vivid: North Korea has reneged on its denuclearization promises many times previously -- eight times according to one count. So, nothing is certain or clear. And yet this is a great stride forward. Just two months ago, during the final stretch to the Winter Olympics, we were dreading post-Olympics military confrontation, to put it in

According to experts at think tanks in Seoul, when it comes to raising a family there are three indispensable elements: a stable job, a decent dwelling and a family-friendly or -supportive social system. On all three counts, we are failing, and failing miserably. Getting a job after college graduation requires acrobatic performance with stellar academic record and unbelievable field experience. Housing prices are going through the roof. Child education is extremely costly. Worse yet, the situati

Korea in 1987 and Korea in 2018 are like day and night. The sharp difference means the current Constitution adopted in 1987 does not accurately reflect the reality of Korea today and the minds of the people at present. The intervening three decades have seen the emergence of national practices that have outgrown the clothes of the provisions of the Constitution. Some wordings turned out to be inadvertent loopholes. Add recent political developments, most notably the presidential impeachment of 2

Many foreign colleagues of mine would ask: How could one deposit such an enormous amount money with a stranger without any tangible guarantee? Their surprise comes again when they hear that there is no monthly payment. One final surprise is that you get the entire deposit back when you vacate. This is the “Jeonse” system in Korea, a unique house renting system only to be seen in Korea (other sporadic examples are found in other countries but not as prevalent as in Korea). Its popularity has been

Visit an apartment complex in Seoul at night. Cars are not just parked; they are packed in every corner of the compound. You could see any conceivable way of using space to leave a car for the night. The remainder are lined up on nearby streets until the next morning. Inside the complex, a small lane is left where one car can just barely pass. Passages for fire trucks have been narrowed and hydrants have been blocked. People push cars backward and forward the next morning to “dig out” their cars

It was in 2013 that the EU designated Korea as an illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing country along with 11 other states, indicating a possible EU-wide sanction on Korean ships and fisheries products. The alerted government mobilized a yearlong campaign to persuade Brussels to delist Korea, and it was eventually taken off the list. Korea had its own problems of IUU fishing at that time, but so did many other countries. So, it was odd to see Korea on the list, the only industrialized stat

A petition was filed with the Blue House with the support of more than 200,000 people, prompting a high ranking Blue House official to appear publicly and issue an official response. This rare national debate relates to courts’ discretionary consideration of intoxication as a mitigating factor in issuing sentences for criminals. The petition aims to amend the Korean Criminal Code to eliminate the intoxication defense from the code entirely and/or amend other special legislations on sex crimes so