In order to vitalize the economic exchange and cooperation between South and North Korea and to create one unified nation, the legal norms of the two nations, which are based on contrasting ideologies, must harmonize with each other, but more importan...
In order to vitalize the economic exchange and cooperation between South and North Korea and to create one unified nation, the legal norms of the two nations, which are based on contrasting ideologies, must harmonize with each other, but more importantly, integrate themselves into one legal structure.
Unfortunately, due to the inevitable differences between capitalistic legal norms and socialistic legal norms, and also due to the changes in the political and the economic circumstances, the integration of the legal system of the North and the South will face numerous challenges.The integration of economic law, especially, will be a delicate subject due to the presence of many interest groups and the question of enforcement.Hence, as the lasting remaining divided nation preparing for unification in the future, Korea needs to examine the possible challenges in integrating the two legal systems.
The ideal model for unification could depend on the sort of methods and procedures by which the integration of the economic legal norms would be formulated.Unless the unification is that of socialistic absorbing of eh South, the integration should guarantee private ownership and individual economic liberty in the North.Korea could learn form the experiences of unified Germany who integrated two contrasting economic legal systems.By examining the integration of Germany, Korea can prevent negative side effects and minimize the number of trial-and-errors in the future economic reconstruction of the unified Korea and effectively guide the turning process of the economic structure of the North.
The political and economic situations that Germany underwent at unification of Germany was that of absorbing the socialistic East into the democratic West.Hence the integration of the legal system of the two Germanys was aimed to dismantle the East's socialistic legal norms of the forty years and extensively apply the legal norms of capitalism.For the two Koreas, it is yet too unclear to predict the type of unification, let alone the type of integration.Nevertheless, analyzing Germany's experiences from the beginning of the integration of the legal norms to the execution of the integrated laws-i.e.how the unified Germany established new laws to protect the rights of the East based on the socialism transfigured after unification, and how unified Germany managed constantly rising problems during the process of unification-can suggest many perspectives for the two Koreas.
Future unification for Korea is itself not an end.As the people of unified Germany understood, unification is the means to political democracy, economic prosperity and welfare for all Koreans.Such ideals cannot be achieved only through the compromise between the socialistic legal norms and the capitalistic legal norm, but through the improvement of the North's ineffective socialistic legal system as well as establishment of liberal market and legal order of a law governing state based on the rule of law.