• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.45
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• pp.51-82
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• 2010

The "rules of private international law" or "conflict of law rules" work to determine the governing law, the law applicable to international contracts. These rules permit parties' autonomy to choose the law applicable to their contracts in cases of both litigations and arbitrations. In this regards, the present article examines parties' five options for the choice of the law governing their contracts, which the parties should consider when negotiating and drafting an international agreement. This means that parties in international contracting should check the contents of the law that they are to choose as the governing law before doing so. The first option is to submit the contract to its own law, which can be the safest and simplest solution generally. However this option is subject to the consent of the other party, and is not appropriate when the domestic law chosen contains mandatory rules strongly protecting the other party. Secondly, the option of choosing the other party's law is not preferable in general. Even though the other party is strong enough to succeed in insisting on applying its own law, the other party is advised to counter-offer a neutral solution by suggesting the application of a transnational set of rules and principles of international contract, such as Unidroit Principles. The third option to choose the law of a third country should be taken with the caution that it should be harmonized with either, in case of litigations, the international jurisdiction clause which makes the country chosen have the jurisdiction over the dispute arising under the contract, or, in case of arbitrations, the way of selection of the arbitrator who has good knowledge of the law chosen. The fourth option of submitting the contract to the lex mercatoria or the general principles of law including the Unidroit Principles can be a advisable solution when a dispute is designed to be submitted to experienced arbitrators. The final and fifth is to be silent on the choice of the governing law in contracting. This option can be usefully available by experienced negotiators who are well familiar with the conflict of laws rules and enables the parties to avoid the difficulties to agree on the governing law issue and leave it open until a dispute arises.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.17
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• pp.7-35
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• 2002

In many international financing transactions Korean companies are required to issue a guarantee. Thus far, however, legal issues on international guarantees have not been fully discussed in Korea. This is partly because most of the international guarantees are governed by a foreign law such as English law or the laws of the State of New York. In this articles the author examines major concepts or terms and conditions of a typical international guarantee, e.g., language on consideration, primary obligor, joint and several guarantee, unconditional and irrevocable guarantee, continuing guarantee, right of subrogation, representations and warranties, covenant or undertaking, currency indemnity, assignment, participation, governing law and jurisdiction clause, etc. For reference, standard forms of a guarantee and a standby letter of credit are attached to the article. In examining the terms and conditions, the author compares them with similar or equivalent concepts under Korean law. The author further discusses some Korean law issues that may arise under international guarantees governed by a foreign law. These issues include the application of the ultra vires doctrine under Article 34 of the Civil Code of Korea, the validity of an international guarantee which a Korean company has issued in violation of the guarantee ceiling set under Article 10 of the Law on Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade of Korea and the validity of an international guarantee which a Korean party has issued in violation of the Foreign Exchange Transaction Law. In addition, the author discusses some issues under a so-called independent guarantee and a standby letter of credit. In this regard, reference is made to the Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantee (URDG), International Standby Practices (ISP98) and the Convention on Independent Guarantees and Stand-by Letters of Credit adopted by the United Nations in 1995. Finally, the author examines major terms and conditions of typical comfort letters and discusses some legal issues, such as the binding force of the comfort letter. In dealing with the issues the author underscores that to the extent the issues are not properly dealt with by an international norm such as Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits or ISP 98, the issues must be analyzed by reference to the governing law of the relevant instrument.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.85-108
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• 2023

In international commercial arbitrations that arise from an international commercial contract, arbitral tribunals ruling on the merits of the arbitration apply the law governing the contract. The parties to contract are free to designate the law under the principle of parties autonomy. This paper examines this principle under the Korean Arbitration Act, and makes some legislative suggestions. For this purpose, this paper first discusses what is the scope of matters covered by the law governing the contract, what are the rules of conflict-of-laws for determining the law governing the contract, and what happens when the arbitral tribunal incorrectly applies the law governing the contract? Then, this paper further goes to examine issues such as the form of choice-of-law agreement, the explicit or implicit choice of law, the parties' ability to choose the rules of law including lex mercatoria, the change of choice-of-law agreement, the independence of choice-of-law clause.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.169-188
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• 2008

Analyzing on an object in the sphere of domestic law with the method of international law has been already on the horizon in international law. For the lawyers of international law and space law, it is quite natural that they utilize the method of international law, whatever objects they may choice. The reason is that the characteristic of international law do not depend upon object in itself, but depend upon method in itself. The object of this paper is the idea of Peaceful Use(IPU or PU) in Japanese Space Policy. The method to be applied to this analysis is the international law's interpretation theory on legal principles, i.e., the method of international law. One of the aims of this paper is to explain critically the need of review on IPU in Japanese Space Policy; in particular with respect to the positive reconstruction of IPU through historical analyzing on the transfiguration and the mere shell of the Post-War Japanese Pacifism(PJP) as the starting point of IPU. The historical process of the transfiguration and the mere shell is as followed, i.e., "from the ultra-nationalism in the pre-war Japan to PJP in the post-war Japan, from PJP to IPU, and from IPU to IPU's regression. In particular with respect to the interpretation theory, the meaning of the teleological, aims and objects school's approach on the interpretation of legal principles(P) has been emphasized. The reason is that the promising development of IPU will be realized by cooperating with the interpretation theory on P in international law. At the end of the beginning, I'd like to quote K. Marx's thesis in order to make the positions and missions the lawyers of international law and space clear. It is as follows, i.e., "THE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD IN VARIOUS WAYS - THE POINT, HOWEVER IS TO CHANGE IT.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.95-107
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• 2017

Mongolian government enacted the Foreign Trade Arbitration Law to modernize the practice of commercial arbitration. Nevertheless, the Foreign Trade Arbitration Trade Law fell short on a number of fronts and arbitration itself remained a distant second option to litigation within Mongolia. Law on Arbitration of 2003 aimed to modernize the Mongolian arbitration framework so that it would mirror the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. At the same time, the Law on Arbitration 2003 made a conscious decision to deviate from international norms with respect to certain aspects in order to accommodate for the unique circumstances and characteristics of Mongolia. For example, unlike its UNCITRAL counterpart, the Law on Arbitration of 2003 did not include an exhaustive list of grounds for refusing the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards. In that sense, the Law on Arbitration of 2003 was a resounding success and a drastic improvement on the Foreign Trade Arbitration Law. These factors convinced the Mongolian government to once again revise its arbitration law. This process, which started in 2008 with the help of foreign law firms and institutions, ultimately culminated in the Law of Arbitration of 2017. The chief objective of the Law of Arbitration of 2017 was to more closely adhere to preexisting international norms on arbitration such as the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, and there is no question that Mongolia has succeeded in doing so. This article thus concludes by explaining some of the noteworthy improvements made by the 2017 revisions, and by noting that Mongolia is now equipped with a truly international legal framework for arbitration.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.31
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• pp.107-134
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• 2006

Enforcement of an arbitration award is an extremely important issue in arbitration. Arbitration, as a dispute settlement process, is rendered meaningless if it is not possible to enforce an award rendered by an arbitration tribunal. On the other hand, the present international arbitration system guided by the New York Convention and UNCITRAL Model Law is established on the dual supervision from the national courts. The nationality of the international arbitral award closely relates to the supervision of the national court, and the national court is entitled to decide the nationality of the international award in accordance with the conditions set in its own domestic law. The national court may set aside arbitral award made in its territory while the foreign court may refuge enforcement of foreign arbitral awards according to its own law and international convention to which it is a party. The conditions set in the Arbitration Law of the People's Republic of China are in agreement with those set in the UNCITRAL Model Law. The Chinese national court is entitled to set aside international awards made in China in accordance with the Chinese Law. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the Chinesr practice on the revocation of international commercial arbitral awards.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.237-259
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• 2010

This paper first gives a brief overview of the history of space law making in the international geopolitical context and recalls some of the main principles as elaborated in the framework of the United Nations. Next, several topics are discussed that will require the attention of space lawyers in the near future. They are the International Space Station, space debris, exploitation of space resources, space tourism, private property rights in space, and militarization and weaponization of space. The paper raises some questions in each of these areas that need to be addressed and concludes that the general legal framework for space activities under public international law as contained in the UN treaties is in place, and is sufficiently general and flexible to enable and encourage states to carry out space activities in an orderly manner. However, as demonstrated by the examples discussed in the paper, the time has come for the international community to agree on the further development of these general principles, starting perhaps with space debris, imminent 'new' uses of space such as space tourism, or some of the 'age old' issues such as the weaponisation of outer space that will continue to require our attention and vigilance. Whether such rules can be in the form of non binding guidelines, codes of conduct and the like, or should be embodied in solid legal instruments creating rights and obligations remains to be seen.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.14-14
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• 1996

In general, a source of international law comes out of either treaties or customs. Process of forming treaty law is relatively clear as it is created by both negotiations of legal experts in issue and express of states concerned in the international conferences. However, this process does not apply to the creation of customary international law. Rather the process to customary law depends on legal inference from or reasoning on states' practices in fact so that there is no definite process or procedures for establishing customary international law and objective criteria to identify it. It is more difficult to prove when and what states' practices have been recognized customary law that turns to bind on all members of world community. This paper is to explore, through theories and findings of ICJ, how the customary international law is formed to be effective as a binding norm of law.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.107-120
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• 1996

In general, a source of international law comes out of either treaties or customs. Process of forming treaty law is relatively clear as it is created by both negotiations of legal experts in issue and express of sttes concerned in the international conferences. However, this process does not apply to the creation of customary international law. Rather the process to customary law depends on legal inference from or reasoning states' practices in fact so that there is no definite process or procedures for establishing customary international law and objective criteria to identify it. It is more difficult to prove when and what states' practices have been recognized customary law that turns to bind on all members of world community. This paper is to explore, through theories and findings of ICJ, how the customary international law is formed to be effective as a binding norm of law.

• 한국항공우주법학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.219-231
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• 2008

" Analyzing on an object in the sphere of domestic law with the method of international law" has been already on the horizon in international law. For the lawyers of international law and space law, it is quite natural that they utilize the method of international law, whatever objects they may choice. The reason is that the characteristic of international law do not depend upon object in itself, but depend upon method in itself. The object of this paper is the idea of Peaceful Use(IPU or PU) in Japanese Space Policy. The method to be applied to this analysis is the international law's interpretation theory on legal principles, i.e., the method of international law. One of the aims of this paper is to explain critically the need of review on IPU in Japanese Space Policy; in particular with respect to the positive reconstruction of IPU through historical analyzing on the transfiguration and the mere shell of the Post-War Japanese Pacifism(PJP) as the starting point of IPU The historical process of the transfiguration and the mere shell is as followed .i.e.," from the ultranationalism in the pre-war Japan to PJP in the post-war Japan, from PJP to IPU, and from IPU to IPU's regression. In particular with respect to the interpretation theory, the meaning of the teleological, aims and objects school's approach on the interpretation of legal principles(P) has been emphasized. The reason is that the promising development of IPU will be realized by cooperating with the interpretation theory on P in international law. At the end of the beginning, I'd like to quote K. Marx's thesis in order to make the positions and missions the lawyers of international law and space clear. It is as follows, i.e.," THE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD IN VARIOUS WAYS - THE POINT, HOWEVER IS TO CHANGE IT.