• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.327-344
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• 2019

This paper explores the hub-and-spoke system as the structure of the global economic network that presents obstacles for international cooperation. With its exclusive jurisdiction and control over the hub, a powerful state can employ coercive economic measures to compel and deter unwanted behavior of rogue states and even its allies. Against this backdrop, this study analyzes the cases of the US blocking access to its market by Chinese Huawei as well as the case of Japan in restricting trade for highly advanced goods to South Korea. This analysis reveals that both measures are forms of secondary boycotts, which affect not only the entities within their jurisdiction but also others located in third countries. In addition, this paper extends its findings to free trade agreements and offers implications on the outward processing scheme for the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the KORUS FTA and the Korea-China FTA. These events result in a gray-risk for South Korea, a country that aims to resolve North Korea's denuclearization and inter-Korean economic cooperation.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.167-187
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• 2007

As Korea has reached a free trade agreement with the United States of America, it is required to provide an appropriate procedure to ".kr" domain name disputes based on the principles established in the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy(UDRP). Currently, Internet address Dispute Resolution Committee(IDRC) established under Article 16 of the Act on Internet Address Resources provides the dispute resolution proceedings to resolve ".kr" domain name disputes. While the IDRC's proceeding is similar to the UDRP administrative proceeding in procedural aspects, the Domain Name Dispute Mediation Policy that is established by the IDRC and that applies to disputes involving ".kr" domain names is very different from the UDRP for generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) in substantial aspects. Under the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement(KORUS FTA), it is expected that either the Domain Name Dispute Mediation Policy to be amended to adopt the UDRP or the IDRC to examine the Domain Name Dispute Mediation Policy in order to harmonize it with the principles established in the UDRP. It is a common practice of cybersquatters to warehouse a number of domain names without any active use of these domain names after their registration. The Domain Name Dispute Mediation Policy provides that the complainant may request to transfer or delete the registration of the disputed domain name if the registrant registered, holds or uses the disputed domain name in bad faith. This provision lifts the complainant's burden of proof to show the respondent's bad faith because the complainant is only required to prove one of the three bad faiths which are registration in bad faith, holding in bad faith, or use in bad faith. The aforementioned resolution procedure is different from the UDRP regime which requires the complainant, in compliance with paragraph 4(b) of the UDRP, to prove that the disputed domain name has been registered in bad faith and is being used in bad faith. Therefore, the complainant carries heavy burden of proof under the UDRP. The IDRC should deny the complaint if the respondent has legitimate rights or interests in the domain names. Under the UDRP, the complainant must show that the respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. The UDRP sets out three illustrative circumstances, any one of which if proved by the respondent, shall be evidence of the respondent's rights to or legitimate interests in the domain name. As the Domain Name Dispute Mediation Policy provides only a general provision regarding the respondent's legitimate rights or interests, the respondent can be placed in a very week foundation to be protected under the Policy. It is therefore recommended for the IDRC to adopt the three UDRP circumstances to guide how the respondent can demonstrate his/her legitimate rights or interests in the disputed domain name. In accordance with the KORUS FTA, the Korean Government is required to provide online publication to a reliable and accurate database of contact information concerning domain name registrants. Cybersquatters often provide inaccurate contact information or willfully conceal their identity to avoid objection by trademark owners. It may cause unnecessary and unwarranted delay of the administrative proceedings. The respondent may loss the opportunity to assert his/her rights or legitimate interests in the domain name due to inability to submit the response effectively and timely. The respondent could breach a registration agreement with a registrar which requires the registrant to submit and update accurate contact information. The respondent who is reluctant to disclose his/her contact information on the Internet citing for privacy rights and protection. This is however debatable as the respondent may use the proxy registration service provided by the registrar to protect the respondent's privacy.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.135-159
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• 2012

To the analysis and discussion whether to conceptualization between the basis and LCM(Life cycle management) of patentability decisions and evergreening through research on patent application strategies and litigation cases. The Stakeholders have said that the LCM and evergreening strategies are an innovative effort to develop new pharmaceuticals, while others say that it is an effort to block generic pharmaceuticals from entering the market and permanently dominate the market by generic pharmaceuticals manufacturers or health economic perspectives. To achieve the goal of research, to discuss for conceptualization LCM and Evergreening strategies through patent application strategies for 14 pharmaceuticals for APIs and case studies for litigations. As a results, the LCM is getting patent rights for the results of research at the initial R&D stage and as such this shall be regarded as part of an effort for technology innovation. However, Evergreening is granting patent rights for the results by making high permission barrier to prevent the market entry of generic pharmaceuticals in the late development period during the pharmaceuticals development process or after their launch. This may lead to the problem of getting weak in health economic aspects and consumer welfare aspects by lowering the market accessibility of cheap generic pharmaceuticals.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.47-74
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• 2018

The United States is often perceived as a free-trading nation as it significantly contributed to the establishment of the GATT and WTO in the 20th century. With the inauguration of the Trump Administration in 2017, however, trading partners of the United States are faced with great concerns over the 'new' aggressive, protectionist and above all, unilateral trade threats posed by the United States under the name of 'America-First' trade policy. However, the recent unilateral trade actions by the United States are not new, but has historically and continuously been used to protect its key industries, like the automobile sector. This paper analyzes the historical cases of the unilateral trade policy of the United States in the automobile industry, targeting Korea and Japan in the 1980s, 1990s and 2010s. Then, we draw future implications for other key industries of the United States such as IT, intellectual property, services and agricultural sectors. This study evaluates whether such unilateral practices have brought successful and expected outcomes in favor of the United States.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.47-72
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• 2016

The Government of Korea has always focused on developing and maintaining a surplus on the balance of payments as a successful trade policy. The focus should now be on spatial information hiding, revealing patterns in trade activities that enable viewing trade in a more sophisticated manner. This study utilizes trade statistical data such as the United States-South Korea imports and exports from 2003 to 2015 officially released by the two countries. It allows us to analyze and extract the spatial information pertaining to the origin, transit, and destination. First, in the case of export data to the United States, the origin of the trade goods has expanded and decentralized from the metropolitan area. With regard to transit, in 2003, most of the exported goods were shipped by ocean vessels and arrived at the ports on the western coast of the United States. However, trade patterns have changed over the 12-year period and now more of that trade has moved to the southern ports of the United States. In terms of destination, California and Texas were importing goods from South Korea. With the development of the automotive industry in Georgia and Alabama, these two states also imported huge volumes of automobile parts. Second, in case of import data, most imported goods from the United States originated from California and Texas. In this case, 40% of goods were shipped by air freight and arrived at the Incheon-Seoul International Airport; most ocean freight was handled at the Port of Busan. The purpose of this study is to decompose the spatial information from the trade statistics data between Korea and the United States and to depict visualized bilateral trade structure by origin, transit, and destination.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.38
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• pp.181-226
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• 2008

The purpose of this paper is to describe the settling procedures of the investor-state disputes in the FTA Investment Chapter, and to research on the international arbitration system for the settlement of the investor-state disputes under the ICSID Convention and UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. The UNCTAD reports that the cumulative number of arbitration cases for the investor-state dispute settlement is 290 cases by March 2008. 182 cases of them have been brought before the ICSID, and 80 cases of them have been submitted under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. The ICSID reports that the cumulative 263 cases of investor-state dispute settlement have been brought before the ICSID by March 2008. 136 cases of them have been concluded, but 127 cases of them have been pending up to now. The Chapter 11 Section B of the Korea-U.S. FTA provides for the Investor_State Dispute Settlement. Under the provisions of Section B, the claimant may submit to arbitration a claim that the respondent has breached and obligation under Section A, an investment authorization or an investment agreement and that the claimant has incurred loss or damage by reason of that breach. Provided that six months have elapsed since the events giving rise to the claim, a claimant may submit a claim referred to under the ICSID Convention and the ICSID Rules of Procedure for Arbitration Proceedings; under the ICSID Additional Facility Rules; or under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. The ICSID Convention provides for the jurisdiction of the ICSID(Chapter 2), arbitration(Chapter 3), and replacement and disqualification of arbitrators(Chapter 5) as follows. The jurisdiction of the ICSID shall extend to any legal dispute arising directly out of an investment, between a Contracting State and a national of another Contracting State, which the parties to the dispute consent in writing to submit to the ICSID. Any Contracting State or any national of a Contracting State wishing to institute arbitration proceedings shall address a request to that effect in writing to the Secretary General who shall send a copy of the request to the other party. The tribunal shall consist of a sole arbitrator or any uneven number of arbitrators appointed as the parties shall agree. The tribunal shall be the judge of its own competence. The tribunal shall decide a dispute in accordance with such rules of law as may be agreed by the parties. Any arbitration proceeding shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Convention Section 3 and in accordance with the Arbitration Rules in effect on the date on which the parties consented to arbitration. The award of the tribunal shall be in writing and shall be signed by members of the tribunal who voted for it. The award shall deal with every question submitted to the tribunal, and shall state the reason upon which it is based. Either party may request annulment of the award by an application in writing addressed to the Secretary General on one or more of the grounds under Article 52 of the ICSID Convention. The award shall be binding on the parties and shall not be subject to any appeal or to any other remedy except those provided for in this Convention. Each Contracting State shall recognize an award rendered pursuant to this convention as binding and enforce the pecuniary obligations imposed by that award within its territories as if it were a final judgment of a court in that State. In conclusion, there may be some issues on the international arbitration for the settlement of the investor-state disputes: for example, abuse of litigation, lack of an appeals process, and problem of transparency. Therefore, there have been active discussions to address such issues by the ICSID and UNCITRAL up to now.