The US has disseminated TRIPS-plus rules through FTAs. One of them is a so-called drug approval and patent linkage system. South Korea imported the linkage system in 2012, and the Korean model was fully implemented from March 15, 2015. After four-year experience, the Korean government, specifically the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, tries to revise the linkage system. Still we don’t …
January 5, 2018 Michael BeemanAssistant United States Trade RepresentativeOffice of the United States Trade RepresentativeWashington, D.C. Dear Mr. Beeman: This letter is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of this date, which reads as follows: “In preparation for initiating negotiations on amendments and modifications to the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), I would like to outline …
Transparency is crucial in legitimacy of bilateral trade agreement. The negotiation of the EU-Korea FTA, like other FTAs, was made in secrecy. This letter shows the agreement between the EC and the South Korean government to keep the negotiation documents of the EU-Korea FTA for three years after its entry into force. Conversely, this means …
Dear Ministers of Trade & Negotiators from RCEP Negotiating Countries, The 20th round of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations is taking place from 17-28 October 2017 in Songdo, Korea. [1] RCEP negotiations include chapters on goods, services, investment, intellectual property etc and the proposed provisions in these chapters affect the daily lives of the …
This is English translation of the written opinion (Korean) submitted to the Korean Ministry of Trade on July 25, 2016. For PDF file, click here (Korean text, English text). Pursuant to Article 8 of the Act on the Procedures for Concluding Commercial Treaties and the Implementation Thereof, we, the undersigned organizations and individuals, submit a written …
Now we got a piece of negotiation documents of KORUS FTA. They reveal the US unilateralism, which will be pursued more strongly by the Trump Administration. Efforts of Korean negotiators to insert “Korea” into the KORUS Preamble were all failed. Compare the final text and failed proposals of South Korean Government (SKG). US Proposal (16 June 2007) …
When the KorUS FTA was negotiated from 2006, the Korean Supreme Court delivered its opinion against ISDS to the Korean government twice in 2006 and 2007. Ridiculously, the opinion of 2006 was disappeared for unknown reason. Here is the opinion of 2007. English translation was made by the Korea National Assembly in May 2012 upon …
This is a rare victory. The court has long been reluctant to raise hands of individuals having rights to know, especially when it comes to trade agreements. Back in 2007 when the KorUS FTA talk was close to a conclusion, the court decided in favor of the Korean government to keep confidential draft texts of …
One of the controversies in implementing the KorUS FTA is whether biological products are subject to the patent linkage obligation of the KorUS FTA. The debate was provoked by the Korean government’s proposal which applies the patent linkage to biologics. But it is unclear if the FTA text imposes such an obligation. Chapter 18 (IPRs) has no definition …