• 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 Applied Tourism Food and Beverage Management and Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.41-67
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• 2006

The study is aimed to analyze the influence of FTA(Free Trade Agreement) between Korea and Japan on tourism and to suggest ways to increase tourists exchange between them by considering countermeasures of Korea's tourism based on the analysis and deriving political significance. The results of the study showed that the expected effects of FTA between Korea and Japan on tourism would overall be positive. There would be increases in employment and a higher rate of foreign-exchange earning, which plays a critical role in the cash flow. Therefore the government is required to prepare for several political measures as follows. First, ways to promote investment in tourism have to be established in a systematic way for FTA. Second, restructuring of tourism has to be considered seriously for tourism to be a high value-added industry after FTA. Third, the tourism information industry needs to be included in the tourism promotion act to promote e-tourism using information technology. In addition to this, an expansive cluster strategy needs to be developed, which relates tourism to other industries like culture and movies and to find ways to re-locate and re-educate manpower currently engaged in the tourism industry. Though the study investigated the influence of FTA on tourism through a practical analysis, it was restricted only to Korea. So the influence of FTA between Korea and Japan on the tourism of Japan should be included in further study. Furthermore, in subsequent studies the CGE(Computable General Equilibrium) model will be applied for objective analysis of the effects. Or measuring the ripple effect with multinational inter-industry relation table will be made for the study to make practical contributions to the development of government policy.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.3-32
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• 2007

This age is called the age of global trade, and the World Trade Organization is a forerunner in promoting the global free trade through multilateral negotiations as the global level. On the other hand, regional economic cooperation such as North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) is appearing, saying that promotion by WTO takes too much time. As is known to everybody, Europe is on the way of integrating member states through EU not to mention economic cooperation. Even in Asia such tendency is shown through ASEAN, Korea, China and Japan in Northeast Asia share geographical proximity, many common historical experiences, and similar cultural norms and values although they have disparities in stages of development, trade and economic policies, and financial and legal frameworks. Under the situation, efforts have been made between three countries of Korea, China and Japan for the conclusion of investment agreements including FTA. If the conclusion of the FTA between the three countries would be realized, it would promote regional trade and investment, contributing to economic growth in the Northeast Asian region. The writer in this paper reviewed the settlement of private commercial dispute including investment dispute arising from the FTA and investment agreements. The investment dispute is quite different from an ordinary commercial dispute arising from commercial transactions in view of disputing parties, applicable laws and rules, etc. Therefore it is a problem of vital importance that the parties interested in investment under the FTA as well as the relevant investment agreement should understand and cope with the settlement mechanism of investment disputes arising therefrom. The ICSID Convention provides facilities for the conciliation and arbitration of disputes between member countries and investors who qualify as nationals of other member countries. All contracting states of the ICSID Convention are required by the Convention to recognize and enforce the ICSID arbitral awards. The New York Convention(formally called "United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards") is also applicable for the enforcement of arbitral awards to be rendered under the FTA. As to applicable rules, the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules may be required for the settlement of investment disputes under the FTA. This Rules has adopted by the internationally recognized arbitral organizations although it was developed primarily for use in ad hoc arbitration. The promotion of arbitral cooperation may be realized through agreements between arbitral institutions. Especially under the NAPTA system, a central common system was established to resolve jointly private commercial disputes arising from such free trades by the initiative of arbitral organizations among the member countries. It is called Commercial Arbitration and Mediation Center for the Americas(CAMCA), which may be a good example for the settlement promotion of the private commercial disputes between Korea and other relevant countries.