• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.41-60
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• 2022

Purpose - The policy implications of free trade agreements have traditionally been a matter of debate among economists. The official signing of the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement provides economists with a quasi-natural experiment to analyze the FTA's policy effects. This article aims to more accurately understand the impact of Korea's FTA accession on the macro economy. Design/methodology - This study adopts the counterfactual method based on panel data to find common factors in the generation process of macro data to fit the counterfactual path, to accurately evaluate the effect of the macro policy. Findings - Our research results show that the signing of the Korea-China FTA has a relatively significant short-term positive effect on Korea's economic growth. On average, Korea's real GDP growth rate has increased by 2.1%. This study finds evidence in support of FTA signing not having a significant impact on Korea's GDP growth in the long run. Additionally, we evaluated the impact of the FTA on Korea's imports and exports and found that it had a significant positive impact in the short term, but the trade effect of the FTA is significantly affected by the external macro-environment. Originality/value - First, this study uses macro panel data at the national level to examine the impact of the Korea-China FTA on Korea, and more accurately describes the policy effect of the FTA. Second, our empirical results show that the Korea-China FTA policy impact is subject to occasional changes in the external environment, such as the geopolitical conflict (crisis) between Korea and China, and the US-China trade war. Finally, the analysis shows that the short-term effect of FTA is significant but the long-term is uncertain, which provides empirical evidence for the debate on whether joining FTA can promote national economic growth.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.42
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• pp.337-364
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• 2009

Trade remedy is the system that additional duty or import quantity restriction would be imposed on the import products, in case that unfair imports damage domestic industry or even proper import products damage significantly domestic industry. The system is secured by the act of unfair trade practice investigation & industrial damage remedy, tariff act, WTO agreement. Anti-dumping duty act is the system that duties are assessed with the equal or less amount of the difference between normal transaction price and dumping price, in case that the product imported under dumping price causes or may cause damages in domestic industry, or the development of domestic industry should be delayed practically. Recently, the problems related with anti-dumping duty imposed as the part of the trade remedy occur frequently. It is necessary to discuss whether the anti-dumping duty act is practically trade remedy which does comply with GATT regulations and WTO agreements as the criteria of international law and is in line with the intent of domestic act in the suffered country, or it does return to protective trade or reduce the protection of consumer. On the basis of this discussion, it would be difficult to impose the antidumping duty on industrial products in order to protect domestic industry, when considering the expected free trade agreements of Korea-US, Korea-China and Korea-Japan. In order to survive under the current severe competition of world trade market, companies should raise the competitiveness by themselves without relying on the current trade acts to provide with a certain protection. This thesis should bring those attentions.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1271-1276
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• 2018

The CPTPP(Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) is a large-scale free trade agreement(FTA) in the Asia-Pacific region involving 11 remaining countries(Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei) since the withdrawal of the US TPP in January 2017, Although the economic size is smaller than the TPP, the CPTPP has 12.9% of the world GDP and 14.9% of the trade volume, meaning that another mega FTA is born. Local economic experts believe that Vietnam's stable economic growth rate and the CPTPP agreement will have a positive impact on Vietnam's stock market and M&A market in 2018. The experts usually expect it will be come into force in 2018 and not later than 2019. The CPTPP is also very likely to enter into force in 2019 with the aggressive attitude of the member countries, simplifying the entry into force of the agreement.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.1-25
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• 2016

This study reviews international discussions about the trade-labor linkage and examines the labor chapters of FTAs enforced by the US and the EU from a comparative perspective. Since early 1990s, starting from the NAFTA, the US has included forceable labor provisions in its FTAs and this trend continues to the TPP which was concluded in October 2015. On the other hand, the EU's labor provisions in its FTAs have been composed of promotional elements on labor rights based on cooperations and dialogues. These different features of labor provisions in the US and European FTAs are mainly due to the motives of the FTAs of the US and the EU respectively as well as their domestic situations with regards to domestic law and institutional set-ups. The coordination of labor provisions involves a long-term institutional as well as regulatory convergence which triggers not only economic but also social changes, compared to a relatively short-term effect of tariff elimination. For Korea which has been a FTA partner country both with the US and the EU, it is significant to keep the different characteristics in the labor provisions in mind, particularly in the process of its implementation. Concerning the implementation of Korea-US FTA, it might be problematic if Korean law and its regulatory practice on labor-management relations do not comply with that of the US. The Korea-EU FTA case can also have an indirect impact on Korea's labor laws since it stipulates in its provisions that both parties should have discussions not only within each government but also with the civil communities including NGOs. Thus, Korea should pay more attention to the true meaning in labor provisions of both FTAs in order to promote its firms to be equipped with the right labor-management system in their operations abroad.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.3-19
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• 2020

With the advent of the Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the U.S. and an increase in trade volume between the two countries, the possibility of commercial disputes has escalated among international merchants. It has been well-known that arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution is an efficient way to resolve international commercial disputes. When arbitral awards are enforced in the judicial system, the court will inevitably have to be involved with the enforcement procedures. The court is a typical legal entity to confirm arbitral awards. Through a confirmation process, the winning party obtains the same legal status of final judgment rendered by the court. However, a winning party in arbitration will have to overcome a legal hurdle in the enforcement process of arbitral awards. This article aims to investigate how the courts control the arbitration practices and what the basic legal issues in the enforcement of arbitral awards are. The US Federal Arbitration Act is investigated, while relevant cases are reviewed and updated for legal analysis.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.193-211
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• 2010

These days, Korean government has been expanding Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with major countries. Expansion of FTA, which means opening up the markets, can be the opportunity to develop for those enterprises with global competency; however, it surely brings disadvantages to such small and medium enterprises which function as an outsourcing and a subcontracted to large enterprises. For Korean economy to overcome the national income of US$20,000 and to jump up to the level of advanced countries, it is imperative to perceive a limit to the large enterprises only. Not only the leading efforts of small and medium enterprises to double the exports, but also realizing the policy reform for the consistent and intimate policy between the government and companies have to be proceeded. Therefore, primarily in this study, first, it includes the overview of the change in trade-environment in an era of FTA, governmental system and policy to support export for the small and medium enterprises; secondly, examination of the export capacity and some problematic factors in export for small and medium enterprises. Ultimately, it is suggested both reinforcement for global competency of the small and medium enterprises and an alternative policy for the support system in the time expecting export expansion.

• Fashion, Industry and Education
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

This study examined the comparative advantage of manmade textile (MMT) industries in the United States (US) and South Korea (SK). The Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) framework was used to assess the MMT industries' performance in both countries from 2004 to 2013. With the recent ratification of the United States-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), it is important to understand the current state of these industries. Using UN Comtrade export data, the RCA index values were calculated and analyzed for 27 MMT commodities, three aggregate groups, and the whole industry. It was found that SK had a consistent comparative advantage for the whole industry. Furthermore, SK had a larger number of products with a comparative advantage. The research findings indicate that the MMT industry in SK is likely to outperform the US following the complete ratification of the KORUS FTA.

• Review of Culture and Economy
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.29-51
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• 2018

The Korea-USA FTA was activated in 2012 and evaluated highly on market-opening among FTA agreements which the Korea government has signed. This paper empirically examines the impact of the Korea-USA FTA on the Korea content industry trade performance with USA. Using ANOVA analysis, the study tested primarily whether there are difference in content exports and imports in a korea-US trade between before and after of Korea-USA FTA in 2012, the year of the entry into force of Korea-USA FTA. Using content industry exports and import data over the period 2007-2015, we find that Korea content export to US after 2012 is significantly different from one before 2012, and there is no difference in import. Based on a regression analysis, we also tested the impact size of Korea content export performance in Korea-USA FTA. The result is that coefficient of FTA dummy variable is not significant, meaning that even though there are some difference in korea content export to US between before and after of Korea-USA FTA, the Korea-USA FTA agreement itself is not a key factor which increase the Korea content export volume to USA market.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.103-124
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• 2012

Because the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (Korea-U.S. FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have an overlapping contracting party, the United States, their provisions have much in common. The investment chapters of these agreements, especially, show many similarities, and thanks to these similarities, it is likely that the Korea-U.S. FTA arbitration tribunal for investor-state disputes regarding the environment will put great weight on the NAFTA tribunals' interpretations of those similar provisions. Since the NAFTA tribunals have already handled many environment-related arbitration cases, their interpretations will help heighten the predictability of environment-related Korea-U.S. FTA arbitration cases. This paper analyzes the environment-related NAFTA cases in which the tribunal has issued an award, which are the Metalclad case, S.D. Myers case, Waste Management case, Methanex case, Glamis Gold case, and Chemtura case. According to this analysis, the most controversial NAFTA provisions have been Article 1102 (national treatment), Article 1105 (minimum treatment standard, fair and equitable treatment), and Article 1110 (expropriation). The NAFTA tribunals applied the requirement of these articles in a strict manner, reducing the possibility of finding a violation. After the aforementioned analysis, this paper proceeds to compare the national treatment, minimum treatment standard (fair and equitable treatment), and expropriation provisions of the Korea-U.S. FTA and NAFTA and to predict the impact that the environment-related awards under NAFTA can have on environment-related Korea-U.S. FTA cases. It is expected that the NAFTA interpretations of the national treatment and minimum treatment provisions are likely be used as they are, but not the interpretations of expropriation, because of the differences in the expropriation provisions of the two agreements.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.207-215
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• 2008

Drug approval-patent linkage is the practice of linking drug marketing approval to the patent status of the originator's product and not allowing the grant of marketing approval to any third party prior to the expiration of the patent term unless by consent of the patent owner. Article 18.9.5 of Korea-US Free Trade Agreement requires that Korea introduce the linkage system in drug marketing approval. However, Korea is unfamiliar with the linkage system. In addition, there have been lots of arguments over the impacts of this system on Korean pharmaceutical industry and pharmaceutical market in the future. This report investigated the linkage systems of the US and Canada. The US and Canada have implemented drug approval-patent linkage system since 1984 and 1993, respectively. Both countries have patent lists for drug approvalpatent linkage on which originators are required to list patents on substance, product, and use of their drugs. Generic or follow-on drug applicants must contain a certification regarding each patent listed that relates to the referenced drug. If the patent holder files suit for patent infringement within 45 days of notice of application, drug approval is not allowed for several months - 30 months in the US and 24 months in Canada. Both countries have amended their systems after having experienced unexpected results such as listing improper and additional patents, multiple patent litigations and delayed generic entries. After reviewing the US and Canada's experiences, we suggested three principles needed in implementing the system: protecting patent holder's right; promoting generic drug development and marketing; monitoring the process and the effect of the system.