• Title/Summary/Keyword: WTO Agreements

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A Study on the Regulations of U.S. Government Procurement (미국(美國)의 정부구매(政府購買) 관련법규(關聯法規)에 관한 고찰(考察))

  • Yoon, Choong-Won;Ha, Hyun-Soo
    • THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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    • v.19
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    • pp.7-31
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    • 2003
  • The governments of almost countries have the rules and procedures that the purchasing entities have to follow, in order to ensure that the best value for money spent is obtained in procuring goods and services. However, there are often some of important problems in their rules relating to government procurement. Namely, almost countries have a variety of discriminatory regulations for foreign suppliers in the government procurement laws with the object of national security, economic welfare, and protection of domestic market from international competition. For this reason, several advanced countries had reached the Plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement during Tokyo Round(1973-1979) and Uruguay Round(1986-1994). However, the provisions of two agreements do not apply to all products made by the government but only to those made by purchasing entities specified by each member country in its list in the Appendix. Accordingly, the size of goods and services purchased from foreign suppliers were comparatively not large. As we know well, the United States have spent a large amount of money from federal and state government budget. But the portion of procurement from foreign suppliers is still small, compared with the portion of procurement from domestic suppliers. The main reason are that U.S. has applied for long time the so-called Buy American Act to government procurement positively and maintained many kinds of other domestic regulations which have discriminatory provisions for foreign goods and foreign suppliers. On the recognition of these points, this thesis deals with the Buy American Act and other U.S. domestic laws, regional and bilateral, and plurilateral agreements including WTO Agreement on Government Procurement. As a result, the author found that there are several concerns and problems in the U.S. regulations relating to government procurement. It include the provisions on priority procurement of U.S.-produced products, local contents requirements, set-aside procurement from small business, and exclusion of preferential procurement from the developing countries.

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Agricultural issues under FTA between Korea-United States (한.미 FTA 농업부문에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Jong-Rack;Lee, Ju-Seob
    • International Commerce and Information Review
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    • v.11 no.1
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    • pp.441-463
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    • 2009
  • FTA is acting as a central axis to accomplish the worldwide trade liberalization as FTA has been globally spreading with competition. As the global economic depression and the trend of new protectionism are getting grave, and the trade liberalization of GATT and WTO is getting delayed, FTA is spread as an alternative. FTA is often called as RTA: Regional Trade Agreement(regional free trade agreement) which takes place mainly around the neighbor nations or regular districts, and these days, it is tending towards agreements between long distant nations, so, it's not limited to the regular districts. Among the FTA agreement items, in addition to the customs abolition, the opening and investment liberalization of service market like finance, communication etc., intellectual property rights are included in the government's target range. Korea also is actively proceeding FTA conclusion. Korean government has concluded the agreements with Singapore, european nations beginning from Chile concluded in 2003, and is proceeding more the negotiations with Japan, Canada, Mexico, India etc. Now in 2009, FTA of Korea-United States is actually waiting for just the passage of assembly ratification. But, if FTA becomes effective, because our domestic market should be entirely opened, it is expected that the blow against our domestic agricultural field which is weak, compared with that of the United States, a nation of worldwide agricultural products, is not an ordinary one. According to it, we need a whole plan to cope with, so, the purpose of this study is to suggest the strategy by comparing and analysing the Korean agricultural competitive power, and to find the other development stratagem.

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A Comparative Study on the Prohibition of Performance Requirements in International Investment Agreements (국제투자협정에서 「이행요건」 부과금지에 관한 비교연구)

  • Hong, Sung-Kyu
    • Journal of Arbitration Studies
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    • v.29 no.2
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    • pp.35-63
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    • 2019
  • Since imposing Performance Requirements (PRs) on investors have been conducted as a means to protect a host state's domestic industry in the short run, with its effect on improving the international balance of payments, it has been implemented mostly in developing countries. From the viewpoint of investors, however, PRs hinder free competition and investment activities and have the effect of distorting international trade activities; therefore, they are expected to bring detrimental effects on the host state's economic development in the long run. PRs provided by International Investment Agreements (IIAs) and WTO-TRIMs, too, included many abstract regulations which are grounded on the host state's economic efficiency in the past; however, those PRs are gradually being more concretely specified, shifting to a form of prohibition with the goals of increasing the protection on investors and realizing investment liberalization. Accordingly, when Korea freshly concludes IIAs or revises them afterwards, one should focus more on following the points regarding PRs. First, to protect Korean companies' investment activities, it is advantageous to list the contents of prohibited PRs extensively and concretely and create a stipulation. Second, it is necessary to list the contents of the PRs prohibited and add the phrases for prohibiting "any other similar requirements" explicitly, as well so as to cover the PRs that can appear newly. Third, as in the cases associated with PRs, issuable matters are mostly either the range of applying PRs or the conditions of applying them (relevance or detrimental effects); therefore, it is necessary to classify the cases accumulated by issues and analyze them thoroughly. In conclusion, as this study has analyzed the theoretical characteristics of PRs provided in IIAs and related cases and suggests exquisite theory regarding PRs, it not only lays fundamental grounds for follow-up research but also gives useful and practical guidelines for the parties concerned and the arbitrators according to the ISDS procedure.

A Study on the Available Countermeasures through a Practical Analysis of China involving Trade Claims (중국 클레임 실태분석을 통한 대응방안에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Kyung-Bae;Choi, Hyuk-Jun
    • Journal of Arbitration Studies
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.137-155
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    • 2007
  • Since China joined the WTO, the trade between Korea and China has continued to grow by leaps and bounds, making both nations become mutually important trading partners to each other. The volume of trades with China showed a rapid upward trend with an average annual increase rate of 20% and the resultant dispute is also rising. Thus, this study was aimed to make some suggestions and come up with ways of responding claims by surveying Korean trading firms which have experience in making transactions with China to investigate the current status and the actual condition of their occurrence. As a result of this study, firstly, the main cause of such dispute was shown to be the failure to perform the agreement. Secondly, there were malty verbal agreements and due to a deterioration of trust in Chinese firms, the method of a letter of credit was adopted by many Korean firms. Thirdly, the payment and credit appeared to be most important in transactions with China. A credit inquiry is a must in future transactions with China. Fourthly, the indirect cause of the occurrence of trade claims was the difference in commercial practices and as for the way of settling disputes, the agreement through negotiations between the parties involved was the most. Fifthly, small and medium firms should make more of their credit and English proficiency than large ones do.

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Study of Selection Plan of Circuit breakers, Cables and Modeling of Korean Low Voltage Electrical Installation integration Test Site based on IEC 60364 (IEC 60364 기반의 한국형 저압전기설비 통합 실증단지 모델링 및 차단기와 케이블의 선정 방안 고찰)

  • Kim, Doo-Ung;Ryu, Kyu-Sang;Kim, Han-Soo;Shin, Dae-Sung;Ryu, Ki-Hwan;Kim, Chul-Hwan
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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    • v.29 no.9
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    • pp.59-64
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    • 2015
  • IEC is an international standards which are used in many countries with Europe as the center. IEC standard is introduced in Korea according to WTO/TBT agreements, however until now there are no buildings in Korea which are designed applying IEC standard. Therefore, KEA(Korea Electric Association) is scheduled to construct Korean low voltage electrical installation integration test site which is designed applying IEC standard. In this paper, before being under construction of Korean low voltage electrical installation integration test site, power substation is modeled based on real design parameters and method to select circuit breakers and cables is presented applying IEC standard in the modeled power substation. EMTP(ElctroMagnetic Transient Program) is used for simulation program. EMTP which is power system analysis program is easy to model power system and power substation.

A Study on the Economic Status and Trade Enhancement of Korea and Mongolia (한국·몽고 경제분야 무역촉진에 대한 상관연구)

  • Bae, Sang-Mok;Park, Yoo-Soon
    • Industry Promotion Research
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.149-155
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    • 2020
  • In this study, we aim to build a consensus that the Korea-Mongolian economic cooperation and trade growth will bring economic benefits to both countries and, in addition, the FTA between the two countries will bring economic benefits to the overall economy through the economic status and mutual trade status of Korea and Mongolia. Currently, countries around the world are accelerating their market battle with fierce competition, pushing for the opening of their markets through free trade agreements of multilateralism and regionalism centered on the WTO as a rapid change in the global economic environment. Amid such an international economic environment, Korea is developing diverse economic cooperation and FTA strategies, and under the principle that it is based on comprehensive and national consensus, it will sign simultaneous FTAs with major countries, but will diversify its trade partners' efforts to increase trade volume through market advantage, secure energy resources, and so on to secure more resources in overseas markets.

The Economic Cooperation Potential of East Asia's RCEP Agreement

  • Armstrong, Shiro;Drysdale, Peter
    • East Asian Economic Review
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    • v.26 no.1
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    • pp.3-25
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    • 2022
  • East Asia's Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into force in 2022 as the world's largest free trade agreement. RCEP was concluded, signed and brought into force in the face of major international uncertainty and is a significant boost to the global trading system. RCEP brings Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand into the same agreement with the ten member ASEAN group at its centre. It keeps markets open and updates trade and investment rules in East Asia, a major centre of global economic activity, at a time of rising protectionism when the WTO itself is under threat. The agreement builds on ASEAN's free trade agreements and strengthens ASEAN centrality. One of the pillars of RCEP is an economic cooperation agenda which has its antecedents in ASEAN's approach to bringing along its least developed members and builds on the experience of capacity building in APEC and technical cooperation under the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. There is an opportunity to create a framework that facilitates deeper economic cooperation that involves experience-sharing, extending RCEP's rules and membership at the same time as strengthening political cooperation. The paper suggests some areas that might be best suited to cooperation - that is confidence and trust building instead of or before negotiation - and discusses how non-members may be engaged and the membership expanded. Options such as multilateralising provisions and becoming a platform for policy convergence and coordinating unilateral reforms are canvassed.

A Study on the Globalization of Services Under the WTO System. (WTO 통상환경 하에서 서비스부문의 세계화 모드에 관한 고찰)

  • Chae, Dae-Seok
    • International Commerce and Information Review
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    • v.7 no.3
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    • pp.287-300
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    • 2005
  • The globalization of services is closely related to other economic problems facing the world today. These are: 1) the globalization of economic activities, 2) the servicization of economic activities. The world economy is now move interconnected than at any time in its history. Investment decisions, production processes, labor market regulations and even environmental legislation made by one country or company affect other economies, other companies and the lives of individuals. In fact, it is nearly impossible to think of a country that is not connected to the world economy in some form or another and it is no exaggeration to state that globalization is already an unassailable fact. The fabric of our economy and the way we do business are changing. This change is the transformation from a marketplace on goods to one focused on services. That is to say, we live and work in a service-centered, service-sensitive economy. As a result of the globalization an servicization of economic activities, services require the globalization, and services are increasing their international trade, foreign investment, agreements, alliances, mergers and collaboration networks. It is quite obvious that services are affected by globalization ; but raising the question by how much leads us to the paradox of service globalization, services represent 70% of the most advances economies but only account for less than 25% of international trade and almost half of direct investment; mergers and takeovers. These figures create a paradox that can be explained by two reasons. First; the natural(the service relationship) and artificial difficulties(barriers to trade) faced by the service sector that inhibits globalization. Second, the non-inclusion in official statistics of the share of internationalized goods that are due to services, for example intra-firm trade or the service value incorporated into exported goods. If these were taken into account the service trade figures would be extremely different. The first explanation can be subdivided into a number of elements. The OECD identifies six reasons:services cannot be stored; client-supplies interaction requires local presence; most service firms are SEMs; products are highly differentiated; cultural differences are especially important in this field; and, finally, trade barriers and restrictions on local operations exist. However, despite all of this, globalization produces clear advantages to suppliers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the main forms of service globalization and differences between that of goods, and is to identify distinctive aspects of service globalization within the framework of the global economy.

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The Legal Issues of Private Investigation Service in WTO/FTA System : Study of South Korea (WTO/ FTA 체제에서 민간조사업의 법적문제)

  • Ko, Ji-Hoon;Park, Hyeon-Ho
    • Korean Security Journal
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    • no.27
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    • pp.161-195
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    • 2011
  • As crimes have increased to an extent that the police cannot cope with, there have been continuous discussions for the introduction of Private Investigation (hereafter PI) in Korea. However, attempts to legislate for the introduction of PI have failed every time PI bills for the introduction of PI were proposed. This was fundamentally because arguments both for and against the introduction of PI were sharply divided depending on the priorities. However, regardless of those clash of views, an apparent need for the legislation of PI service has arisen. As Korea opens its service market to other countries through GATS and FTAs, currently existing domestic PI law has been found to be inconsistent with international agreements such as GATS and KOREA-US(KORUS) FTA. This paper found that the Act on Usage and Protection of Credit Information which regulates PI service is inconsistent with the Article 12.4(a)(i) and (iii) of KORUS FTA and the Article 7.11 and the Article 7.13 of KOREA-EU FTA. If Korea does not modify the existing laws and establish new laws in relation to PI, such inconsistencies could lead to international trade disputes which could amount to billions of dollars. In this regard, the passage of the PI bill is necessary.

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A Trend of the National and International Standards for LCD Backlights (LCD 백라이트 국내외 표준화 동향)

  • Cho, M.R.;Shin, S.W.;Lee, S.H.;Hwang, M.K.;Lee, D.Y.;Yang, S.Y.;Ham, J.K.
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of IIIuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers Conference
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    • 2007.05a
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    • pp.141-144
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    • 2007
  • BLUs are major component in LCD industry which occupies 90% or more of FPD market worldwide and BLU market is expected to be expanded continuously according to the trend of miniaturization, slimness, low power consumption and low weight. The larger the BLU market scale, the more important standardization of performance evaluation techniques to clearly prescribe the product specification. Currently the government is promoting the establishment of related laws and coincidence with international standards to cope with agreements such as WTO/TBT, but the nongovernmental standardization activities are not enough to be actualized. Furthermore, BLU related components such as CCFL, EEFL, inverter and reflector are already developed for localization to substitute imports with home products but collective standardization, national standardization, and international standardization are still not done. So, performance specifications and evaluation methods for normal fluorescent lamps or industrial lamps are being adopted and used as national standards and safety certification standards instead. Making these standards enables to prepare a chance to penetrate into global market and to promote world best products. Also, by making this collective standard, it provides chances to take part in international standardization activities, to protect domestic industries and technologies, to obtain the trend of advanced technologies, and to be predominant over other countries. That is to say, CCFL standardization helps raise 21st century national strategic technology policy and go ahead of globalization of core technologies.

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