통일 후 북한의 소유제도 재편 방향

Abstract

1. Unification, which is a foremost task of our nation, may actually said to be a matter of with in a term. If and when we examine the long history of the Republic of Korea, unification and division have continued without ending. Thus, it is the timing of unification that is problematic, and since the unification will take place someday, the more the preparations are made, the less the after-effects will be. Since the unification will eventually be one of the two Koreas, all procedures ought to be done in line with the principles of international law. Consequently, unification must be consummated legally. Thus, thorough legal preparations must be undertaken from the start of the unification to its end. The legal preparations for the unification by absorption or by negotiation will be divided into the process of unification itself, such as a unification treaty or a national treaty, and the legal arrangement following unification. In the latter case, a most important priority would be re-privatizing state-owned properties in North Korea. 2. A socialist state, in principle, owns all the land. Contrary to which, in a capitalist society, land is subject to private ownership in principle, and such private property system is guaranteed by the Constitution. Thus, once the unification is achieved, the lands in North Korea are bound to be the subject of private ownership. In such a way, the most important issue in the lives of the people would be to decide what extent and how to reorganize the land ownership system following the transition of state owned properties. This issue of re-privatization may also be divided into re-privatization of unique meaning and privatization of negotiation as discussed in the above. The re-privatization of a unique meaning is a work of reorganization such as land reform carried out during the Soviet era and the return of and compensation for state properties to the original owners made by the subsequent measures. For instance, will restorations be made for the original owners, or should the land continue to be maintained as state owned, or distributed to other owners, and should the compensation be paid to the original owners? An option of such form must take into account not only legal considerations, but also various policy considerations such as development and management of the land and economic developments such as environment and real estate speculative activities. Considering this view, it would be desirable to take on the compensation method rather than the restoration in Korea. That is because when the land itself is narrow, the people’s sentiment is so strongly attached to the land. If and when farmland, etc., is returned to the original owners, the original owners, who are non-farmers, and their heirs would be better off to secure as much state owned lands as possible and reorganize them via the compensation method rather than the restoration method considering the risks of real estate speculations caused by surges in the land prices following the disposition of the lands.