Session 6. Peace and Prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia
Presentation 2. Methods for the Vitalization and Institutionalization of Inter-Korean Cooperation
LEE SeungHwan Chairman, South-North Korea Exchanges and Cooperation Support Association

□ Urgent tasks are vitalizing and institutionalizing exchanges and cooperation between South and North Korea, of which the cornerstone for resumption and development was set through the Panmunjom Declaration.
 
○ For institutionalization of exchanges and cooperation between the two Koreas, the factors to be considered first are; 1) Striking a balance between a guarantee of private autonomy and the state’s responsibilities; 2) establishing a mechanism for sustaining exchanges and cooperation and preventing its reversal; and 3) increasing civic participation.
 
○ The National Unification Contract should be discussed mainly focusing on rebuilding the mechanism for exchanges and cooperation through the formation of convention-based governance between government and civil society.
 
□ Institutionalization of corporative exchanges and cooperation could be applied to the dimension of inter-Korean relations. If South Korean representative bodies of exchanges and cooperation make and keep an agreement with the North Korean authorities, it can create a kind of convention-based governance between the two Koreas.
 
○ Aside from signing inter-Korean basic agreement, “inter-Korean sociocultural exchanges agreement” is necessary.
 
○ To institutionalize inter-Korean economic cooperation, both sides need to conclude “Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)” that embraces the existing agreements, and restart the joint committee on inter-Korean economic cooperation as a permanent consultative body.
 
□ The basic direction of vitalizing and institutionalizing inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation is reorganizing the operational basis from the government-dominant regime to the corporative regime between government and civil society.
 
○ These measures aim to establish the irreversible and sustainable foundation of exchanges and cooperation and to bring about civil society-friendly change in North Korea by invigorating civil participation.