International legal reviews on ISD, a procedure for resolving disputes under the Korea-US FTA, are examined from the perspective of law. If the ISD system does not exist, even if the investor suffers damage due to the illegal act of the host country, he or she must file a lawsuit through the court of the host country, which is unreasonable from the investor's point of view and makes it difficult to guarantee fairness and transparency. Some of the Koreans pointed out that there are some problems with the KORUS FTA dispute settlement regulations, and that the United States federal courts are taking a friendly attitude to the decisions made by the US Customs in determining the dispute by the KORUS FTA Agreement and the US Customs Act. In cases where the State does not violate international law but results in harmful consequences, the responsibility of one country is borne by the treaty. Foreign investment always comes with many challenges and risks. Therefore, the ISD system is a fair and universal arbitration system, which is considered to be a necessary system even for protecting the Korean companies investing abroad. In the investment treaty, compensation for the nationalization of foreign property and reimbursement under the laws of the host country were dissatisfied with foreign investors. In particular, some Koreans have pointed out that there are some problems in the KORUS FTA dispute resolution regulations and there is a need for further discussion and research. Based on the experiences and wisdoms gained in the course of Korea-US FTA negotiations, the dispute arbitration mechanism is urgently needed to reduce the possibility of disputes and to make amicable directions.

This paper reviews and analyzes the U.S. cases and statutes on the writing requirements of arbitration agreement. In order to discuss the legal aspects of writing requirement on arbitration agreement in the U.S., it is necessary to delve into both the contractual aspects of arbitration agreement and statutory specifications of the writing requirements of arbitration agreement. Statute of frauds and parole evidence rule were reviewed and employed to find legal implications on the writing requirement of arbitration agreement. Relevant cases were analyzed to verify how the courts have been responded to the conflicts regarding the validity of the arbitration contract with respect to writing requirement. International treaties absorbed into the U.S legal system were also reviewed and commented to analyze their implications on the writing requirement of arbitration agreement, including the UNCITRAL Model Arbitration Law and the New York Convention.

On 9 March 2017, a Tribunal constituted under the ICSID Convention issued its ruling in the case of Ansung Housing v. People's Republic of China, dismissing with prejudice all claims made by the Claimant, Ansung Housing Co., Ltd., in its Request for Arbitration, pursuant to ICSID Arbitration Rule 41(5). Ansung Housing v. PRC has drawn attention since it is the first case where an investor with Korean nationality initiated an ICSID arbitration on the basis of the Korea-China Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) as amended in 2007 between the Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China. The Tribunal finds that its ruling is about a lack of jurisdiction of the ICSID and of its own competence as well as regarding manifest lack of legal merit due to a lack of temporal jurisdiction, since a Respondent's Rule 41(5) objection is concerned with the three-year limitation period in Article 9(7) of the Korea-China BIT. The Tribunal held that, under Article 9(7) of the Korea-China BIT, the limitation period begins with an investor's first knowledge of the fact that it has incurred loss or damage, not with the date on which it gains knowledge of the quantum of that loss or damage. Finally, the Tribunal held that Ansung submitted its dispute to ICSID and made its claim for purposes of Article 9(3) and (7) of the BIT after more than three years had elapsed from the date on which Ansung first acquired knowledge of loss or damage and that the claim is time-barred and, as such, is manifestly without legal merit. It remains to be seen whether the aggrieved Claimant initiates annulment proceedings before an ad hoc committee under the ICSID Convention. It is quite interesting to see whether the decisions by the Tribunal should be reversed on the basis of the Claimant's arguments as to the start date as well as the end date of the limitation period under the Korea-China BIT.

The purpose of this study is to find a solution to disputes in the process of producing digital music sources. At present, the center of the world music market including the domestic market has been completely transformed from the tangible musical record market to the intangible sound source market. Due to these environmental changes, the music production process becomes industrialized and specialized, causing conflicts of interest among the individuals in the process. First of all, this study examined changes in the music market which is the background of the dispute, identified the problems of the process and suggested solutions while summarizing the meaning and role of each process of producing a sound source that may arise during the sound production process. This study covers plagiarism between producers, copyright infringement of the creator against assistant creator caused by the industrialization and division of the production environment, issues related to the rights of sound engineers whose role and importance become bigger as acoustic technology develops and music genres become more diverse, and vertical hierarchy due to the formation of oligopoly by several distributors with huge capital. As a result of the study, it was concluded that Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system is suitable for solving these problems. Specific methods of using ADR include activation of the dispute settlement system of the Korea Copyright Commission, active use of the arbitration clause specified in the standard contract, and recalculation of labor costs and earnings from copyright through mutual negotiations. This paper can be differentiated from previous studies in that it studied overall problems that might arise in the process of digital music source production and suggested ADR utilization as the solution.

In contemporary society interest in and consumption of beauty treatment are increasing, raising interest in health and beauty. However, beauty-related laws are becoming factors of hindrance of beauty development. Currently the Public Health Control Act plays a basic role in the beauty art business in Korea, However the contents are in discord with international laws and its definition is not clear. Therefore it is causing conflicts of different occupations and job associations which are similar to art business. Especially, because neither definitions nor policies on beauty care devices exist in the Public Health Control Act, beauty care devices using in foreign countries cannot be used in Korea due to classification as medical devices. Under this circumstance, therefore, beauty care device uses by beauty artists violate the law. The government has tried to solve these irrational regulations. Recently, the Small and Medium Business Administration announced 'the improvement plan of small business and young founders site regulation for public economy recovery' in a ministerial meeting on December 28, 2016. Regulations on policy preparation for skincare devices were inclusive in this announcement. It is the question whether the regulations will be executed or not. Even though beauty industrial competitiveness was presented in the 18th Presidential Council on National Competitiveness in 2009, it was not practiced. The proposal bills for beauty law improvement have been put forth several times since 2000 including an improvement plan for regulating beauty care devices. However, so far there have been no improvements. The damage on the regulation classifying beauty devices as medical devices is not only restricted to skincare. This develops beauty devices and the beauty industry which imports and exports beauty devices. When beauty devices are exported, complicated procedures are unavoidable and when beauty devices are imported, irrational problems like reregistration procedures and costs occur. The reason why an improvement plan has not gone into practice is the resistance of the dermatologists' association. Dermatologists tend to stand positively against harming public health by saying that beauty devices used by beauty artists cause people to suffer side effects. In contrast, anyone who has a licence to use beauty devices is able to use them in foreign countries. It is not only infringement of one's right as a beauty artist but also people's right to receive beauty care services. With this reason, Korean's current law under which beauty devices are ruled as medical devices should be revised with accordance to domestic surroundings. Therefore in order to advance and globalize the beauty industry, the support and cooperation of the Korean government and relevant associations is needed to legislate and revise the beauty devices laws. The relevant associations abandon regional self-centeredness and cooperate to define ranges, size and management of beauty devices for safe use. If no collaboration exists, an arbitration agency should be established to solve the problem.

In the process of online trading, many unexpected conflicts may occur. The consumer wishes to perform transactions with a seller by trusting the seller's listings, but there are times when even major companies such as Kakao edit their original listings. When the seller edits their listing, it is extremely difficult for the consumer to prove and deal with the problem. If they don't deal with them carefully they may be accused of denigration. This study proposes a consumer protection system to resolve this problem. In case a problem occurs, proof that the original listing was edited can be submitted to a judge in court by using this system, thus preventing these types of problems from happening. If this system is installed, both the seller and consumer know that the terms of contract cannot be falsely changed to the advantage of either side, so the source of the problem can be prevented. This study analyzes the reasons behind the conflicts and presents a systematic way of preventing the problem. This method does not present a financial burden, and provides a way for transactions to be held based on trust for the seller and consumer.

A study on the global trend of accreditation for mediators implies many important aspects of controlling of the quality of mediation. Firstly, whether or not having an accreditation system, most European countries and the U.S. have a common understanding on the fact that mediators need to be trained to mediate disputes, apart from their own expertise on the subject matters. Secondly, private-led accreditation has been utilized in countries having a Anglo-American law system such as the United Kingdom and the U.S. a while nation-managed one has been operated in the countries having a continental law system such as Austria, Belgium, Italy and Germany. Thirdly, private mediation service providers (usually institutions or companies) play an active role in the training and accreditation of mediators and further make them act as mediators in the disputes referred to them. Fourthly, the countries having a nation-managed accreditation system usually stipulate a certain mediation training and accreditation requirement by law. Fifthly, there is no uniform trend on the minimum hours of training required for accrediting the mediators. Sixthly, mediation training generally focuses on the practical mediation capacity-building, including mediation theory and role-playing, mediation simulations, peer review and supervision. And finally, the mediation theory mainly includes the role of mediator, mediation procedures, mediation communication, negotiation and communication skills, mediation ethics and mediator's code of conduct, etc.