ISDS Case Map
Korea
The government will speed up negotiations with the European Union to clinch a free trade deal with an aim to implement the agreement in January next year.
Microsoft has called for the incoming Barack Obama administration to push ahead with ratification of the pending free trade deal with Korea.
Opposition lawmakers ended their 12-day siege of South Korea's parliament Tuesday after blocking -- for now -- a US free trade deal and other legislation.
Lawmakers of the governing party in Korea are expected to ratify the Korea-US free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) motion and railroad 85 contentious bills today after last-minute negotiations with the opposition failed as of midnight Tuesday.
The head of South Korea's parliament ordered opposition legislators Monday to end their sit-in by midnight so major bills can be passed, warning them not to force him to take "extreme measures."
Call it the free trade follies. South Korean opposition politicians last week used a sledgehammer to try and force their way into a barricaded committee room to stop the ruling party from introducing debate on a free trade agreement with the United States. Fire extinguishers were used amid the melee -- it's not entirely clear by whom -- that threw South Korea's National Assembly into chaos.
Representatives of peasant organizations in south Korea went into an all-night sit-in strike in Seoul on Dec. 22 to check the passage of the motion calling for the ratification of the south Korea-US FTA through the National Assembly.
Australia and Korea have concluded preparatory talks on a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA).
South Korea and the EU hope to finalise their FTA in January
The parliamentary battle over a contentious free trade deal in South Korea led to a confrontation on Thursday in which opposition lawmakers used a sledgehammer to knock down the doors of a blockaded room in which a committee was discussing the agreement.
