Abstract
On December 2, 2014, the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea passed the two ratification bills for Korea-Australia and Korea-Canada free trade agreements (FTAs) containing investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions soon after the end of trade negotiations with the two Pacific Rim partners, regardless of an on-going multi-billion dollar ISDS claim initiated by the Lone Star Funds—an American private equity firm—against the Korean government (LSF-KEB Holdings SCA and others 2012), invoking similar ISDS provisions provided in another investment treaty with the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (Korea-Belgium/Luxembourg BIT 2006). In fact, this claim placed Korea for the first time as a respondent State in known ISDS cases (UNCTAD 2013). Such a bipartisan support to the proposed bills resembles that of the National Assembly in May 2012 when its members passed the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) bill almost unanimously with only 3 abstentions and placed Korea as the first Asian country to initiate an ETS (International Emissions Trading Association 2013), despite the fact that the ETS of the European Union (EU), the largest carbon trading market, revealed its serious loopholes in its trial period. Interestingly enough, the two FTAs and the Korean Emissions Trading Scheme (KETS) came into effect concurrently from January 2015.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
