• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.638-651
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• 2022

Last year, a new perception of the right to peace on the Korean Peninsula was adopted: DMZ Yanggu Peace Declaration 2021. The Declaration reflects that there is a raising of necessity for a new perception and approach from the perspective of DMZ-related laws, sustainable ecological environment and security. Gangwon is making considerable efforts to make the border area in DMZ as an area of peace by continuously enhancing publicity on the establishment of the 'Peace Special Self-Governing Province'. This study suggests the necessity of a paradigm shift towards the significance of the interkorean border region that it should function as a passage between the South and the North rather than a dam. For, to be renewed as a sustainably developing region through newly constructed flow of communication, the wall of hostility must preliminarily fall dawn. Then a question arises about how Gangwon is, out of other border region, most eligible for the reconsideration of its significance as a border area. The answer relies on the newly established agenda and understandings towards the right to peace in the perspective of founding the policy for the Unification of the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, the conservation of DMZ ecological environment through enlistment of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve should go hand in hand with the ultimate value of global agenda of the conservation and protection of the environment. The study insists that the peace zone is a prerequisite for the adaption of the era of future-oriented glocalization featured by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Up to this date, the border area was an area of pain and agony. It is time for Gangwon to be reborn as an area of peace and coexistence. The aim of this study is to point a direction for Gangwon to become a sustainably developing region by illuminating the value of the Gangwon border area as a new area of peace.