• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.643-655
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• 2021

This study investigated the effect of the Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) microfinancing on the economic, social, and household empowerment of women borrowers in Malaysia. The study used a quantitative approach based on primary data. For this study, the participants comprised 384 AIM borrowers from Terengganu, Kelantan, and Pahang in the east coast region of Malaysia. Purposive stratified random sampling was used as well as the Krejcie and Morgan method to count the number of samples. Descriptive statistics and the Women Empowerment Index (WEI) were used in the analysis. The study findings reveal that AIM microfinancing affects the economic, social, and household empowerment of women borrowers in Malaysia. However, in comparing the three categories, women enjoyed more freedom in social and household decision-making than in economic decision-making. The present study recommends policies for the successful and effective operation of microfinance programs by providing the necessary guidelines for the control of AIM loan for women borrowers; increasing income-generating activities, sufficient access of credit, and proper education for the borrowers; and giving economic freedom of choice with necessary skill training policymaking options for the government and NGOs with the aim to improve the total household income and empowerment of the microcredit borrowers in Malaysia.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.170-179
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• 2007

The present study purposed to establish a network for building an efficient disaster response system and for this purpose, we compared cases of disaster response in Japan and Korea. In Japan, disasters are responded jointly through the network of the central government, local self governing bodies and non governmental organizations. In Korea, however, the cooperative network among different areas is weak and this is aggravating damages caused by disasters. That is, in Korea, disaster response services have been mainly carried out by the public sector. The public sector can operate a powerful disaster management system using its extensive management resources, compelling power, and legal authorities. However, it was found that, due to the characteristics of contemporary society, efforts by the public sector including the central government and the local self government bodies have limitations in managing disasters effectively. Thus, for efficient disaster response in Korea, it is urgently required to establish a national disaster response network as well as a private sector cooperation system and to induce NGOs to participate in the disaster response system through institutional devices.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.75-93
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• 2001

The advantages of arbitration such as promptness, economy and flexibility apply to the disputes arising from corporate governance between shareholders and a corporation. The confidentiality of arbitration can be particularly highlighted in the disputes among the members inside corporation. But it appears that the shareholders believe litigation the best way to pursue liabilities of managers of corporation and improve the system of corporate governance. And it is claimed that the current litigation system lacks the implementation of shareholders rights due to structural deficiency and therefore need bring class actions into the system of Korean jurisprudence. The OECD, which afforded the rescue finances to Korea, also recommended shareholder class actions as a way to improve corporate governance. Class actions have merits but even advanced countries consider the changes of existing system or only stay class actions in the stage of discussion. Rather, legal experts urge arbitration to be used more frequently and the Courts also approved the dispute resolutions of the disputes as to corporate governance through arbitration. There is no report in Korea that arbitration was used to resolve the disputes between shareholders and the managers, or between shareholders and corporation, which is listed in the Stock Market. There only are the debates for bring class actions into the judicial system between NGOs and the organizations of corporate managers. But arbitration has greater advantages in resolving the disputes among the members of corporation that any other methods for dispute resolution. Arbitration can interpret flexibly the mandatory provisions of the Statutes of Security and the Code of Commerce to meet the needs of parties involved, which is not possible to the Courts. Arbitration can issue the award to meet the equity of the parties. And arbitration can avoid a resolution of All or Nothing by fully considering the specific situations of Korean corporations(such as family-dominated management) and can issue the award beneficial to all parties of shareholders, managers and corporation. Thus it should be sought to resolve the disputes as to corporate governance through arbitration.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.27
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• pp.35-62
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• 2004

This study examined how the three major newspapers covered the press reform movement in Korea. Despite that the NGOs and Korean government keep trying to reform the market and structure of the newspapers, the targeted newspapers argue that they are unjustly accused of the dominance of the press market made by the readers' choice. Using frame analysis and discourse analysis, this study analyzed the news coverage on the press reform for 6 months and revealed that these major newspapers presumed to be targeted were totally challenging against the press reform by means of flaming of news and using news discourse. The ways of challenge were, firstly they appealed to the readers that the press reform is the press suppress so that they have to fight against this unacceptable pressure. And secondly, they report the news selectively for their own interests by elaborating, magnifying, or reducing the facts. Thirdly, they attack the government policies and major figures leading the press reform by letting the outside columnists favorable to their own standing point. And finally, they conduct the poll on and off and report what they want according to their self interests.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.147-168
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• 2007

The objective of this study is to examine the studies of foreign workers in Korea at a level of meta-analysis focusing on their subjects and methodology. Over the last 15 years, studies of foreign workers have diversified subjects and refined methodology reflecting major characteristics of migration patterns including a rapid increase in number, large populations of illegal sojourners, a majority low-skilled young male workers from less developed countries, and an active role of migrant-support NGOs. Nevertheless, the studies have shown problems such as a higher ratio of macroscopic discussions, overemphasis on social problematic issues and a tendency towards descriptive analysis. Methodologically, they have also revealed an inactive use of empirical and quantitative data, lack of representativeness of sample and disregard of an importance of language in the study of foreigners. Based on the analysis, this study proposes strategies to enhance researches of foreign workers in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.305-337
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• 2012

The OECD High Level Forum-4 that was held in Busan in 2011 was a very important international conference in which more than 2,000 high level representatives from OECD countries, UN, private businesses, charity foundations, NGOs, etc participated, and which dealt with the aid effectiveness issues of ODA (Official Development Assistance), one of the important funds for social welfare of developing countries. However, despite its significance, none of social work organizations, either international or domestic, were in appearance during the conference. What made such a thing happen? This study started from that question and tried to explore the history of international social work: when and how social work gained an international leadership in caring for social welfare of developing countries and how and why it began to lose it. This study also tried to explore, based on the international experience, the tasks that Korean social work community, both academia and field, which just began to be concerned with international social work for developing countries, should address at this beginning stage.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.85-114
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• 2022

When human rights disputes are related to the cross-border investments treaties, the investment arbitral tribunals are confronted with the question of how to adjudicate connected human rights violations. The traditional structure restricts arbitration proceedings to the parties named within an investment treaty, i.e., Investor-Claimant and State-Respondent. If human rights issues occur, States must act as proxies for citizens with human rights claims. This effectively excludes individuals or groups with human rights concerns and contradicts the premise of international human rights law that seeks to empower human rights-holders to pursue claims directly and on an international stage. The methods for intorducing human rights issues in the context of investment arbitration proceedings are suggested as follows: First, human rights arguments can be introduced into ISDS by the usual initiator of investment disputes: the investor as the complainant. Especially, if the jurisdictional and applicable law clauses of the respective international investment agreements are sufficiently broad to include human rights violations, adjudicating a pure human rights claim could be possible. Second, the host state may rely on human rights argumentation as a respondent of an investor claim. Human rights have played a role as a justification for state measures undertaken to comply with human rights laws. Third, third party interventions by NGOs and civil society groups as amici curiae may act as advocates for affected populations or communities in response to the reluctance of governments to introduce their own human rights duties into the investment dispute. Finally, arbitrators have also referred to human rights ex officio, i.e., without having a dispute party referring to the specific argument. This was mainly the case in the context of determining the scope of property rights and the existence of an expropriation. As all U.N. member states have human rights obligations, international investment laws must be presumed to be in conformity with the relevant human rights obligations.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.173-218
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• 2009

Bring this analysis down to people-centered development perspective and looking through democratization in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, we find similarities and differences among them related with the intensity of conflicts between development and human rights in the process of democratization in line with global transformation. Civil society in the Philippines criticized the developmental path in the Philippines which failed to implement land reform and eradication of poverty under the transition from 'patrimonial oligarchy' to democracy. In Thailand the coalition of military and the royalists had consolidated its power since Sarit military regime, which later paved the way 'hybrid oligarchy' era. Most Thai civil society organizations has regarded their developmental experience rather as 'maldevelopment' which disregarded economic and social rights. It has been especially believed by Thai localists that the stimulation of local markets and the building of autonomic community society will form the alternative economy without going against the conservative banner of nation, religion and king. Thaksin as a populist successfully took advantage of Thai localist ethos in favour of taking the seat of power. He projected himself as a modernizer focused on economic growth and cleaner politics. However Thaksin's procedural legitimacy was overthrown by counterattacking from military-royalist alliance, pretexting that Thaksin caused internal conflicts and lacked morality. Soeharto's New Order regime which can be called 'administrative oligarchy' had an antipathy towards notions of economic and social rights as well as civil and political rights. In spite of the fact that the fall of Soeharto opened the political space for democratic civil society organizations which had long struggled with development aggression and human rights abuses, there have been continuously a strong political and military reaction against human rights activists, NGOs and ethnic minorities such as Aceh and Papua. Nevertheless, Indonesian democracy is more promising than Philippine's and Thai democracy in terms of comparatively less pre-modern legacies.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.645-655
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• 2006

Apsan, as part of the main ecosystem of Daegu city, plays an important role for maintaining the environmental sustainability of the large city. Especially varieties of valuable resources, which are cultural, historical, biological, geomorphological and geological, are distributed around Apsan. Therefore the positive preservation plan is required. This paper aims to examine the environmental characteristics of Apsan and then suggests the following ideas for the environmental preservation and sustainable use of Apsan. 1) 'The New Map of Apsan' that includes more exact information needs to be produced. 2) The Apsan ecosystem management plan should be made under the precision natural ecology investigation. 3) For the protection of inanimate object resources, such as geographical feature and geology, the Geotourism Department needs to be established within Daegu metropolitan office of education or the tourism division of Daegu city government. 4) An effective environmental-impact-assessment system should be officially established. 5) the positive administrative and financial support system led by local NGOs is required for the Apsan environmental protection activities and education. 6) It is necessary to bring out into the open prayer sites to prevent forest fire. 7) 'The nature rest year system' enforcement is required to restore the damaged ecological space of Apsan.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.454-472
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• 2014

This study is to analyze the approaches of development discourse and its representation in geography curriculum and textbooks for middle school in Korea. The paper examines the spectrum of development discourse in terms of modernization theory, dependency theory, neoliberalism, grassroots development, sustainable development, postcolonism, post-structuralism and post-development. The findings on geography textbook analysis based on them are as follows. First, Most of the textbooks don't include the definition and operational definition on development and sustainable development. Second, development indicators rely on normal economic indicators like GDP or GNI per capita. HDI that includes GDP per capita, level of education and life expectancy is treated in some of the textbooks, and gender index is never presented. Third, a textbook still uses biased terms such as developed and most developed countries instead of developing countries. Fourth, in plans to solve economic unequality and geographical problems, personal level is treated less than the global, nation and NGOs. Finally, statements on sustainable development contain only intergenerational equity, not intergenerational equity. And approaches on sustainable development are based on technocentric approaches more than ecocentric approaches. Thus geography textbooks should be carefully written on development discourse by authors.