It has now become an annual ritual. As the holiday season draws near, students go into emergency mode. Forget the new year celebration. They dread it. Fateful national bar exams take place in early January every year. I say fateful because the four-day annual exam determines the most critical issue for law school graduates after three hard-working years at law school -- whether they will be admitted to practice or not. The eighth exam of its kind is taking place on Jan. 8 to 12, 2019. 3,617 stud

Viewpoints Nov. 27, 2018

Korea is a “fast” country. Everything is quick and speedy, with one exception: The regulatory framework. By and large, laws and regulations fall way behind technological development in the market. Startup companies’ first encounter is regulatory red tape. How ill-matched for a country that excels in information and communication technology. The tricky part is, these regulations have legitimate objectives. In particular, they are intended to mitigate risks, known and unknown. The default answer i

Viewpoints Nov. 13, 2018

Hypothetically, visualize yourself fleeing your home country for fear of life. To make it out of the country, you would diligently throw away and destroy documents and materials relating to your identification or association. If successful, you would arrive in a foreign country, almost empty-handed and paperless. Then comes the dilemmatic part – how do you prove the circumstances that forced you to flee? The last thing you would do is contact agencies back home or consulates general abroad for i

Viewpoints Oct. 30, 2018

We were hoping that 2018 was an aberration. That countries were just reacting emotionally. That things would return to normal come next year. Sadly, those hopes were just hopes and recent reports confirm what many of us suspected and still dread: Global trade will not exit the “protectionist” orbit anytime soon, and China-US trade relations will continue on a collision course. To a country struggling to overcome an economic slowdown, with red lights flashing on major indicators, nothing could be

Viewpoints Oct. 16, 2018

Recent price hikes for housing in Seoul have fanned deep frustration among those living outside Seoul. While prices in Seoul are going through the roof, real estate markets elsewhere are struggling with too many vacancies. Local money is flocking to the Seoul real estate market in droves. As ever, people and money keep coming to Seoul.Seoul’s status as a powerful magnet for people and national resources is a chronic problem for Korea. The Seoul Metropolitan Area accounted for 49.5 percent of the

Viewpoints Oct. 2, 2018

The names and faces of government officials and business leaders in the presidential entourage for this week’s third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang send a clear message as to how serious we are about the two Koreas’ economic cooperation projects. To start with, it includes eight minister-level officials. Also joining are corporate leaders from Samsung, LG, SK, Hyundai and Posco, among others. Not only that, the CEOs of KDB, Korail and Kepco are flying North as well. With entourage members of t

Viewpoints Sept. 18, 2018

Global trading norms have traditionally adopted a bifurcated approach: goods trade and services trade. These still constitute the two main pillars of trade agreements. Now, a fundamental change is in the offing. The arrival of artificial intelligence and the internet of things is now blurring the conventional line between goods and services. The two are now often combined, converged and integrated in one medium or product. Goods provide services, and services in turn put more goods for sale. Con

Viewpoints Sept. 4, 2018

It was about 10 years ago when I visited Baku, Azerbaijan, several times, right by the Caspian Sea. A seaward view from the city was like that of any other city at the tip of an ocean. Its vastness matches almost that of the Black Sea, with five countries bordering it. The sea contains a variety of fish. Rich pockets of gas and oil, you bet. Beaches, of course. It even has salty water. In a sense, it contains everything a ‘sea’ would have. Except one thing: an outside route. It is landlocked. Th

Viewpoints Aug. 21, 2018

Maybe it was just an honest mistake. A typical “rules of origin” confusion or infraction. Origin faking or laundering is not new to customs officials at the border, so importers may have believed that the coal shipments really originated from Russia. The low price and unusual loading port (Kholmsk, Sakhalin) may not have been sufficient to raise a red flag for the importers and the government.Coal arrived at Korean ports and was put into the stream of commerce. This took place last October.What

Viewpoints Aug. 7, 2018

“We declare that the war is finally over and that interested parties will seek to establish a peace regime on the peninsula” or something along the line will be the gist of an official ‘declaration’ to terminate the Korean War. As encapsulated in the title, it is just a declaration -- a political, diplomatic statement without binding legal effect. Even if adopted, it itself does not change the present Armistice Agreement. So, it is an easy target. At least so it seemed. After the sluggish meetin

Viewpoints July 24, 2018

Use, separate and forget. These three words best describe plastic consumption in Korea. We use plastics a lot; we separate them meticulously; and then we forget.Korea uses plastic products heavily -- 420 plastic bags per person in 2015, which is six times more than Germany and 100 times more than Finland. Besides, our local governments operate such an efficient system of garbage separation and collection -- residents and households carefully read manuals and sort plastics. And that is pretty muc

Viewpoints July 10, 2018

What is work and what is leisure? This longstanding philosophical question has suddenly become a legal question as a new labor law (Labor Standards Act) is entering into force on July 1 to cap the maximum weekly working hours at 52, together with a penalty provision for non-complying employers. Having realized the unclear dividing line between work and non-work and the fear of imminent confusion on the field, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced at the last minute a six-month grace per

Viewpoints June 26, 2018

Jeju Island has become a hot potato inside the Korean government. On the same day the Ministry of Justice listed Yemen as a state whose nationals are not permitted to enter the sub-tropical island without a visa, the National Human Rights Commission issued a strong statement urging agencies in charge to take more active measures to protect the basic rights of the refugees from Yemen staying on the island. Both happened on June 1.It all started with a recent surge of Yemeni refugees entering the

Viewpoints June 12, 2018

Since about a week ago, a new batch of emails have started to fill my inbox. The senders are various entities -- publishing companies, journals, academic organizations, law firms, and even airlines -- in Europe and in Korea.These emails ask for my consent to store and process my personal information such as contact details, dues payment, membership record, and the like. The senders all refer to the new regulation of the European Union called the General Data Protection Regulation that entered in

Viewpoints May 29, 2018

“Betwixt and between” is the term that best describes South Korea when it comes to determining the legal status of North Korea. In the South’s legal system, North Korea is not regarded as an independent, separate state. Our Constitution describes “the whole Korean Peninsula and adjacent islands” as the territory of the Republic of Korea; hence its northern part is simply considered an unrecovered territory under the temporary rule of a rebellious entity. And yet, Seoul has had to deal with Pyong

Viewpoints May 15, 2018