• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.117-137
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• 2012

The objective of this article is to examine the characteristic features of contemporary policy-led regionalism in Asia. It identifies the positive and negative features associated with the free trade agreements that have proliferated in Asia during the first decade of the $21^{st}$ century. There has been a marked transformation in Asia's regional architecture in a short span of a decade-and-a-half. The mode and conduct of multilateral trade has been significantly transformed during recent years and Asia could not possibly remain immune to this transformation. The importance of regionalism in multilateral trade has increased steadily. In addition, the trade-investment-services nexus has developed and grown increasingly important. As business firms now manufacture parts of their products across the border, bilateral trade agreements (BTAs), regional trade agreements (RTAs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) of the contemporary period need to take into account the new kind of trade barriers that have been created due to the changing mode of trade. The contemporary regional agreements need to be designed to facilitate the new modes of conducting business and trade. It was understood rather late in Asia that the 'WTO-Plus' FTAs are more functional and result-oriented than their predecessors.

• 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.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.23-42
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• 2006

Services, despite the difficulty of its exact definition, can be defined as deeds, efforts, or performances by economical bodies, attributing to four unique characteristics - intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, and perishability. This study aims to research the global competition and problems of the local professional services, especially educational services and health services, and to suggest some devices for increasing the exportation of both educational services and health services. Educational services and health services were reserved in the multilateral negotiation to open the WTO parties' markets because of its national public benefits. But it is indispensable to open our local market by the bilateral FTA negotiation. Legal restrictions, therefore, related to both education and health should be erased according to the basic rule of the market competition, and it is advisable to control the national public benefit of these services by enacting the different legal systems. For recovering from minus balance of payment in the educational services or health services, furthermore, it is necessary to drive rather some offensive exporting policies than the defensive policy against supply from the foreign countries. In conclusion, the korean Foreign Trade Act and other relative acts should be revised, and both educational services and health services should be contained within the definition of "the international trade" for the governmental benefits of supporting the services exportation.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.379-403
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• 2009

The Purpose of this study is to research the problems of trade restriction for an environment protection. Environmental regulation relate to trade are Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora, Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes & Their Disposal, Cartagena Protocol on Biosafty and WTO Agreement. Regulatory action for environmental protection has economics instrument, command & control, liablity, damage compensation, voluntary agreement. In the case of our country, impact of regulatory action for environmental protection is low. Because is recognized position of developing country yet. For in the balance rules of trade and enviroment, First must satisfy WTO's basic principles and principle of quantitative restrictions prohibition, Second, operation of protection action must reasonable and objective standards Third, must satisfy GATT article 20 (b) clause and (g) protestation each essential factor To grow for environment advanced country, we should do i) using of FTA ii) international cooperation strengthening for developing country position iii) construction of environment information network

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.233-260
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• 2013

Regional Trade Agreements(RTAs) are a prominent feature of the multilateral trading system and have been an important trade policy tool for WTO Members. RTAs has been steadily increasing over the last ten years and this trend will be further strengthened by the many RTAs being proposed and those currently under negotiation. There has been a recent increase in the Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) making it necessary to determine the most effective method for taking advantage of anti-dumping measures between member countries of the RTA. Due to the complexity of anti-dumping laws and abuse of discretion by each nation, however, the basic goal of the RTA has not come to fruition. The results of this study found that the strengthening of anti-dumping measures in the RTA is desirable. A plan to use competition instead of anti-dumping measures must be implemented. For Korea, it will be necessary to develop the fundamentals for the globalization of competitive rules to keep pace with the continuous expansion of FTA.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.244-260
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• 2006

The main objective of this study aims at analyzing the national roles of fisheries in the global economy from the constitutional view point. Globalization provides general firms and businessmen with great opportunities that allow them to be able to plan and operate their business strategies beyond the national boundaries. WTO and FTA negotiations must be important facilitators of such globalization. However, Korean primary industries like fisheries under comparative disadvantage have a high probability that there may have to be the trade-offs between the primary and the industrial sector to maximize national benefits in the process of bilateral and/or multilateral international trade deals. Since, moreover, fishermen face strong binding constraints under which they hardly carry out fishing operations standing aloof from national boarders, they have to manage fishing businesses within their own national territory, to maintain and develop fisheries culture, and to explore their own destiny for themselves. Because of such reasons, the constitution imposes upon the State the duty to support and develop fisheries and fishing villages. Considering its article and spirit associated with fisheries(i.e. article 123), it seems unnecessary at this point in time that Korean society makes debates over national consensus for supporting fisheries. The reason is because the explicit provisions of the constitution do not allow their arbitrary interpretation depending upon interests or policy situations. However, where national support to the particular sector could not meet the expected social value system, there would be a great deal of chance to invite serious societal debates over such national commitment to the fisheries. Therefore, whether using it efficiently and realizing the socially expected policy goals must be a responsibility of both fisheries administration and fishing industries.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.256-268
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• 2004

Korea remains one of the few countries in the world that has not participated in any formal regionalism except its first FTA with chile which was just recently concluded. The lack or regionalism in Northeast Asia reflects post-war national policies that favored international export markets as an engine of economic growth. Based on a survey of 50 firms in Korea, this paper examines the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism in terms of computer industry. The results show that the industry favors international rather than regional markets for its continued export growth. According to the results, accelerated trade liberalization measures through the mutilateralism of the WTO dilute the demand for and negative impacts from regionalism. Overall, the results suggest that the Korean computer industry supports a trading system with a strong multilateral commitment based on non-discrimination.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.21-42
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• 2023

Purpose - This paper investigates the trade effect of the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (KCFTA) which coincides with political conflicts between the two countries due to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in Korea. The two events occurred in the same year and both are likely to affect trade between two countries but in opposite directions. Therefore, it is crucial to distinguish between the trade effects from the KCFTA event and those from the THAAD event to evaluate the true FTA effects. However, this would be difficult when using only annual data. Accordingly, ex post studies to examine the trade effects of KCFTA are lacking in trustworthiness while many ex ante studies that conjecture the positive trade effects neglect the THAAD deployment impact. This paper aims to fill that gap. Design/methodology - Given that the KCFTA and THAAD events occurred in the same year but in different months, we use the monthly data from 2000 to 2019 of Korea's exports to bracket this period. We employ the difference-in-difference (DID) method within a gravity equation specification that uses hi-dimensional fixed effects to address various endogeneity issues and seasonal effects. We identify the net impact of KCFTA ratification from these two near-simultaneous events to quantify the effects of trade liberalization between these two countries. Findings - After isolating the THAAD effects on trade, the analysis creates a positive and statistically significant coefficient estimate of the KCFTA impact. In contrast, failing to isolate the THAAD effect produced a negative and statistically significant coefficient estimate of the KCFTA impact. Our results indicate that KCFTA independently increased Korea's exports to China by 10.2%, but that this increase was fully mitigated by the THAAD event. Further, our results verify that unobserved heterogeneity and multilateral resistance are technically difficult to account for in those estimations as that rely solely upon annual data, as this type of data are inadequate to control for the potential for endogeneity. Originality/value - This paper is one of the first studies to carefully evaluate the net trade effects of the KCFTA on Korea's largest trading partner while isolating the impact of simultaneously occurred political events that may influence trade in opposing directions. Our findings indicate that the lack of prior evidence of positive trade effects of the KCFTA when using annual data may be attributed to a failure to identify the impact of each event separately. This analysis supports using the correct modeling specification to avoid misleading conclusions when evaluating any important international trade policy.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.93-106
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• 2020

Trade is an important economic activity. In particular, since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the scope of trade has been expanding due to events such as the entry of China into the WTO in 2001, the establishment of a multilateral trading system, mitigation and integration of trade barriers, and the establishment of the free trade agreement (FTA). Despite the expansion of the trade market, however, extreme events such as the 2008 global financial crisis, the 2016 Brexit, and the 2018 US-China trade war have had a direct negative impact on the trade market. Therefore, the present this study analyzed the dependence structure between the international shipping freight rate index, a variable representing trade activities, and the trade uncertainty between the US and China. The following is a summary of the analysis results. First, the US-Chinese trade policy uncertainty and international shipping freight rate index presented a Frank copula and rotated Clayton copula 270° distribution, respectively, showing the same distribution structure for each country. Second, the Kendall's tau correlation revealed a negative dependence between the international shipping freight rate index and US-Chinese trade policy uncertainty. The degree of dependence was greater in the combination of uncertainty in China's trade policy and international shipping freight rates. In other words, the dependence of global demand and trade policy uncertainty confirmed that China was stronger than the US. Finally, the tail dependence results revealed that the US-Chinese trade policy uncertainty and international shipping freight rates were independent of each other. This means that extreme events related to the trade policy uncertainty or international shipping rate index were not affected by each other.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.73-80
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• 2017

Purpose - Since Korean distribution market was opened, the domestic environment in department stores has been changed by the pattern of consumption and consumer need based on income classes. As multilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) accelerates opening markets, the scale of circulating capital has become bigger. Large-scale commercial facilities have developed quickly as a form of a large shopping center, thus, the matter of choice and securing market area became an important valuable in this trend. Moreover, multi-complex space has been proposed as the goal of successful business with promoting the public benefit. Research design, data, and methodology - This research studied consumer behavior using data about the life style and sales of consumers, not statistical data or survey as previous studies. This research tried to find the differentiation in complex cultural space with consumption behavior of department store. Results - As the structure of society and culture was getting diverse and complex, economic growth and development with such diversity and complexity improved consumers' quality of life. The changes of consumer life style are quite natural like human instinct. Department stores have activated retail business with the products of accumulated technology. Moreover, they have created the space of consumption and culture. Because of these social and environmental changes, department stores are being developed as Multi-functional spaces as well as sale places considering the strategies of department and the changes of consumers' purchasing behaviors. Conclusions - Urban culture complex is a landmark standing for the culture era of 21st century. It has provided an opportunity for consumers to enjoy culture, and has been an important factor to improve company images. Based on these roles and needs, expectancy effects are related with consumer preference and space preference, and the attitude toward companies. Moreover, the expectancy effects from those relationships are getting bigger and bigger. We should respect nature, a characteristic of Korean architecture, maintain visual continuity that harmonies with nature in the development of the complex space of the domestic department stores, and should take significance in the development of the complex cultural space in the direction of feeling the hierarchy of the space to obtain the visual pleasure with the artificial structure.