• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.3-25
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• 2016

Lately each country tends to provide neutrality and ease of enforcement in order to settle disputes related to international trade through commercial arbitration. In order to expand the use of arbitration systems, most countries accept arbitration agreements as an effective tool agreed between parties that express their intent to settle disputes by the arbitration. It is applied equally to selective arbitration agreements and parties can select either arbitration or lawsuit to settle disputes based on the contract intent for selective arbitration agreements. However, China does not admit the effectiveness of selective arbitration agreements. Chinese courts regard selective arbitration agreements as not valid because the contract of a selective arbitration agreement between parties is not a definite expression to only use the arbitration and there is no exclusion of court jurisdiction. Therefore, the study attempts to consider effective conditions for selective arbitration agreements in the Chinese arbitration act and other relevant regulations, and also verifies the judgment by Chinese courts on relevant disputes. As a result, the study explores some problems and implications of Chinese selective arbitration agreements and suggests some precautions in case Korean companies pursue selective arbitration agreements with Chinese enterprises and investors.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.63
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• pp.89-110
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• 2014

Since the CISG came into force in 1 January 1988 in China, many cases as well as arbitral awards have been decided under the CISG during the period of about 30 years of its application in China. After the CISG entered into force and before the handovers of HK in 1997, the China courts or CIETAC applied CISG to the disputes between China party and HK party in many cases, even PRC reserved CISG article 95. On the Contrary, after the handovers of HK in 1997, the China courts or CIETAC did not apply CISG to the disputes between them in many cases with the reason that China filed an CISG article 95 declaration and HK is not a contracting unit. The matter is the China's contract law and civil law have convinced that the CISG is highly applicable as "International Practice" under the China law in appropriate circumstances, so sometimes China courts or CIETAC applied CISG based on the China law not CISG itself. As a result, some interpretation made by the China court or CIETAC might not comply with the international character of the CISG and to some extent even impaired the uniform application of the CISG. So the author expects more and more valuable cases to be reported which will be good for its further development.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.29-60
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• 2004

Recently stand-by credits are using as surety devices in various global business transactions including sale of goods. Stand-by credits have lots of merits but simultaneously have high possibility of improper demand by the beneficiary due to the characteristics of the documents required. So so-called fraud rule has developed as a solution to the improper demand in letter of credit transactions. And the actual way of the fraud rule is the injunction by the competent court. The purpose of this article is to examine the applicability of the injunction in stand-by credit transactions by means of case studies. For this purpose, the author examined the concept of the injunction, necessity of the injunction in stand-by credit transactions and the cases of injunction granted and injunction denied. Firstly, the courts have legal standard of the application of injunction due to the legislation of the relative articles in the United Nations Convention on Independent Guarantees and Stand-by Letters of Credit and the Uniform Commercial Code. Secondly, the courts have taken a negative attitude granting injunction in order to observe the independence principle. Thirdly, the courts have a tendency to grant injunction when the demand has no conceivable basis and the applicant will suffer irreparable injury without injunction. Finally, like the saying 'prevention is the best cure', the applicant always pays attention with reasonable care before improper demand by the beneficiary.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.624-633
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• 2020

In those day, Incheon and Busan local government are arguing about establishment of a maritime court. This study aims to develop a model that evaluates the priority orders for the establishment of maritime courts using maritime casualties counts based on the integrated ELECTRE-CRITIC-ISM technique, as well as to verify its usefulness in the establishment of maritime courts in Korea. For this purpose, a total of 22 ports, excluding nine ports where maritime accident data were integrated and managed among the 31 international trade ports, were matched with the jurisdiction of six alternative high courts. Second, the CRITIC method was used to calculate the weights of the number of maritime casualties during a 5-year period that were evaluation factors and combine with the ELECTRE method. Finally, the ELECTRE&ISM method was used to analyze the concordance and discordance between high courts and evaluate the priority orders considering the fluctuations of maritime casualties counts. As the final evaluation result considering the mean values in fluctuations of maritime casualties counts, the Busan High Court ranked first, the Gwangju high court second, the Seoul high court third, the Daejeon and the Daegu high court forth (equal), and the Suwon high court sith. Therefore, it is necessary to preferentially establish a maritime court in the jurisdiction of the Busan High Court.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.20
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• pp.141-176
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• 2003

This paper examined how Korean courts conceptualized and applied public interest defense of Penal Code to the libel cases raised by socially influential persons. For this, this paper analyzed a total of 58 libel cases in which 'public interest' was mentioned by Korean courts between 1981 and 2000. It was found that whereas truth or believed-to-be-true defense is emphasized In libel cases by politicians or public officials, public interest defense was emphasized in the cases by private figures. It was also found that Korean courts tended to think of matters related with 1) national security and social order, 2) prevention of asocial crime, 3) enlightening of public, and 4) protection of consumers' interest as public interest. Conclusively, 'public interest' is not simply applied as an independent legal defense, because Korean courts insistently concentrated on the truth of a story and did not even specifically define what is public interest. Constitution Court recently maintained that the slope of legal defense should be broadened when a story is about public matters. However, Korean courts will not be likely to accept public interest defense as an independent one for the time being.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.13
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• pp.131-149
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• 2000

In connection with international commercial arbitration the need to seek interim relief is generally recognized. Interim reliefs address the requirements of a party for immediate and temporary protection of rights or property pending a decision on the merits by the arbitral tribunal. The most common forms of interim relief are attachments and injunctions. If the arbitral tribunal has not yet been appointed, an application for interim relief must usually be addressed to the local courts at the place of commercial arbitration. If the arbitral tribunal has been appointed, the application for interim relief is first made to the arbitral tribunal. Interim relief by the arbitral tribunal is in the form of a direction to the parties. Since the arbitral tribunal has no enforcement power, it may be necessary to have a arbitral tribunal's direction confirmed by a local court which can enforce its order. The New York Convention does not provide for interim reliefs. The question is whether Article II(3) of the New York Convention that the court "shall, at the request of one of the parties, refer the parties to arbitration" denies jurisdiction to courts to grant interim reliefs in international commercial arbitration. Some cases have indicated that the U. S. court have no power to grant interim relief. Other cases have indicated that the U. S. courts do have the power to grant interim relief. It is unlikely that a U. S. court will order interim relief in relation to an commercial arbitration in a foreign country. Article 26 of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules provides with respect to interim measures of protection. Section 1 of Article 26 of UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules provides that the arbitral tribunal may take any interim measures it deems necessary in respect of the subject matter of the dispute, including measures for the conservation of the goods forming the subject matter in dispute. This article gives the arbitral tribunal the broadest authority, not limited to safeguarding property. Article 17 of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration provides that the arbitral tribunal may order any party to take such interim measure of protection as the arbitral tribunal may consider necessary in respect of the subject matter of the dispute. It may be noted that the article does not deal with enforcement of such measures. The International Chamber of Commerce Rules of Conciliation and Arbitration do not expressly empower the arbitral tribunal to grant interim reliefs. However, Article 8.5 of the ICC Rules of Conciliation and Arbitration provides that the parties shall be at liberty to apply to any competent judicial authority for interim measures. In conclusion, the power of the arbitral tribunal to provide interim reliefs is generally recognized in the arbitration rules of arbitral institutions. However, the arbitral tribunal's authority is limited by its lack of enforcement mechanisms. It is generally recognized that the local courts have power to grant interim reliefs in aid of an commercial arbitration. However, local courts are reluctant to grant interim reliefs if that decision requires an adjudication of issues within the special competence of the arbitral tribunal.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.55
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• pp.5-32
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• 2011

This paper is a comparative analysis of constitutional decisions in which the Korea Consitutional Court and the United States Supreme Court applied the void for vagueness doctrine into free expression issues. Common aspects are: both courts applied the void for vagueness doctrine on the grounds that vague laws bring chilling effect on freedom of expression. Acknowledging inevitable uncertainties in lawmaking and legal jargons, however, both courts required minimum standards in the void for vagueness doctrine. In the cases where unclear legal meanings resulted in constitutional challenges, both courts adopted the "narrowing construction" by the courts or judges based on average/ordinary person's understanding. The biggest differences between the two constitutional courts are their approach to the degrees of vagueness allowed in free expression cases. The U.S. Supreme Court underscored the necessity of narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards. Meanwhile, the Korea Constitutional Court relaxed its standards in some cases such as the National Security Law cases, even though it admitted the possibility of curtailing the right to free expression. The Court reasoned that those laws, though vague, brought with bigger social interests and are necessary tools in dealing with changing world.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.55-95
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• 2010

The meaning and application of 'lesion corporelle' in the context of a variety of mental or psychic injuries is less clear, while there is very little disagreement about its literal translation. U.S. Court decisions since Floyd allow recovery for a range of claims involving emotional injury under Article 17; in some cases there is no recovery, while in others there is full recovery, depending on the allegations and the nexus between the alleged injury and any related or accompanying physical injury. Courts are in agreement that pure emotional injury is not compensable under the Convention. Most courts agree that emotional injury is not compensable in those cases where it has resulted only in physical manifestations such as weight loss or sleeplessness. At the same time, most courts generally agree that emotional injury is compensable if it proximately flows from a physical injury. The issue as to whether the courts would associate PTSD with bodily injury as envisioned in the present Warsaw structure or even the new regime reflected in the Convention proposed by ICAO would largely depend on the extent to which courts would be ready to embrace the compelling scientific findings with regard to mental distress and its application within the term 'bodily injury'. Taken together, these points when the current under Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention, 'physical injury' notion of 'mental injury' is to be extended. Of course, the current terms of the Warsaw Convention have been maintaining a precedent for many countries appear to have a statue of the original purpose of the treaty does not contribute to the diffusion. Therefore, in future treaties 'bodily injury', the term 'injury', the term 'personal injury' or 'health undermined' the term should be replaced or revised.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.3-35
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• 2016

The United States Constitution gives power to the federal district courts to hear admiralty cases. 28 U.S.C. §.133, which states that "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the Courts of the States, of any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction." However, the determination of whether a case is about admiralty or maritime so that triggers admiralty jurisdiction was not a simple question. Through numerous legal precedents, the courts have drawn a line to clarify the boundary of admiralty cases. This unique jurisdiction is not determined by the mere involvement of a vessel in the case or even by the occurrence of an event on a waterway. As a general rule, a case is within admiralty jurisdiction if it arises from an accident on the navigable waters of the United States (locus test) and involves some aspect of maritime commerce (nexus test). With regarding to the maritime nexus requirement, the US Supreme Court case, Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, held that federal courts lacked admiralty jurisdiction over an aviation tort claim where a plane during a flight wholly within the US crashed in Lake Erie. Although maritime locus was present, the Court excluded admiralty jurisdiction because the incident was "only fortuitously and incidentally connected to navigable waters" and bore "no relationship to traditional maritime activity." However, this historical case left a milestone question: whether an aircraft disaster occurred on navigable water triggers the admiralty jurisdiction, only for the reason that it was for international transportation? This article is to explore the meaning of admiralty jurisdiction over aviation accidents at US courts. Given that the aircraft engaged in transportation of passenger and goods as the vessels did in the past, the aviation has been linked closely with the traditional maritime activities. From this view, this article reviews a decision delivered by the Seventh Circuit regarding the aviation accident occurred on July 6, 2013 at San Francisco International Airport.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.33-54
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• 1997