Imminent FTA action
Korea Herald, Seoul
Editorial: Imminent FTA action
31 October 2011
Few would be surprised if the ruling Grand National Party resorted to its majority power to ram the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill through the National Assembly at any time. The GNP must believe it has accumulated enough justification to do so while the main opposition party has weak logic to ask for public support for its rejection of the bill. Rep. Chung Dong-young is in the center of the DP’s illogical and unreasonable behavior in the KORUS FTA tussle.
By early last week, the two parties seemed to be acting constructively, holding 30 hours of debate joined by academics and minor party members to examine “toxic clauses” in the bilateral pact and government measures to take care of its impact on local industries. They reached no solution but agreed to hold further discussion centered on the “investor-state dispute (ISD)” clause which the DP determined as the worst of the worst provisions.
However, DP’s Chung and the Democratic Labor Party’s chairwoman Lee Jung-hee declared they would boycott the session Sunday for two reasons: the government’s alleged decision to pass the bill by Monday “by all means” and no assurance of live broadcasting of the debate by major terrestrial networks. By now, we cannot but suspect that the DP might be pushing the GNP toward attempting a unilateral vote in violent physical clashes at standing committee and plenary sessions.
Chung, the DP’s unsuccessful 2007 presidential candidate, who is now being eclipsed by present chair Sohn Hak-kyu and Roh Moo-hyun loyalist Moon Jae-in, is apparently seeking strong ties with the radical DLP in the anti-FTA struggle. He is probably eying its support in a future realignment of the political left.
Chung had headed the National Security Council under President Roh when the KORUS FTA was signed. When asked to explain how he could so strongly oppose the pact which he had previously supported, he answered that he did not know detailed provisions.
The ISD clause allowing U.S. investors to bring their disputes with the Korean government to an international panel of arbitrators instead of local courts was in the FTA text from the time of its signing in 2007. The Roh Moo-hyun administration and the then ruling Uri Party, predecessor of the present DP, had hailed the KORUS FTA as “the second opening of the nation to raise Korea to a hub of FTAs in East Asia.” An Uri Party report particularly noted that Korea should ensure that ISD clauses are included in future FTAs with other countries to protect Korean businesses’ overseas investment.
The opposition party did not take issue with the ISD clause when the two governments “renegotiated” the pact chiefly on the automobile and beef trade at the request of Washington last year. Chung and his colleagues are now demanding another renegotiation after the KORUS FTA was ratified by U.S. Congress.
