북한 투자보장협정에 있어서의지속가능발전 요소 도입방안

Abstract

Since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1718 as a sanction against North Korea shortly after North Korea attempted its first nuclear test on August 8, 2006, the international community has continuously adopted and implemented strong economic sanctions against North Korea. The UN sanctions prohibited any foreign investment into North Korea as a form of joint venture and have had a widespread impact on North Korea's economy and industry, As a result, North Korea’s economy is at stake. As part of efforts to overcome economic sanctions, summit between North Korea and the held in Hanoi ended in failure. Although expectations on the foregoing summit has broken down, North Korea is still willing to stop the economic downturn due to economic sanctions. Furthermore, strong desire for economic growth by North Korea will eventually lead them a step toward denuclearization. If the nuclear issue is resolved, it is expected that North Korea will definitely try to negotiate bilateral investment treaties with other countries in order to attract foreign investment for economic reconstruction. In recent years, there has been a significant change in bilateral investment treaties. In particular, three new features on the current investment treaties can be identified First of all, elements of sustainable development are being introduced. Secondly, protection on the regulatory authority of the host country is highlighted. Thirdly, new provisions are being introduced to minimize the exposure of host countries to the investor-state disputes. In this regard, the new bilateral investment treaties are likely to include so-called 'sustainable investment' elements. Meanwhile, North Korea has signed bilateral investment treaties with 24 countries and among them, 14 investment treaties with China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Iran, Macedonia, Malaysia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia have entered into force. However, North Korea's bilateral investment treaties does not include any elements related to sustainable development at all. The recent bilateral investment treaties has faced more challenges than ever. In case of India and Central and South American countries, it was not enough to point out the problem of the investor-state dispute settlement procedure. They currently abolished the existing bilateral investment treaties. In this regard, the bilateral investment treaties North Korea intends to conclude in the future should ultimately bring sustainable development to North Korea and its foreign investors respectively. Therefore, it is necessary to explore various ways of introducing sustainable investment factors into the bilateral investment treaties of North Korea. In other words, it is possible to introduce provisions such as ensuring the regulatory authority of the host country to protect the environment and disposing of environment-related government measures from investor-state dispute resolution. In addition, the adoption of the 'Corporate Social Responsibility' provisions is not a mandatory standard under the international law, but it has the characteristic of soft law that encourages companies to make more sustainable investment. This can be helpful to both investors and host countries. I hope that the day will come when the Korean government will be able to contribute to North Korea's model BIT, based on Korea’s previous experiences on FTA & BIT negotiations.