통일헌법의 과제로서 경제공동체적 통합

Despite the historical aspirations for national unification, there are much of problems on the road to unification. Many experts predict that most of all, the problem of economic gap and difference between North and South Korea would be significant obstacle for unification. In this context, "unification policy for global Korean community" which has been presented by the government of South Korea since 1989 has proposed a gradual and phased unification process, the centerpiece of which has been the economic integration. This policy is based on realistic recognition. In particular, the 2000 summit between South and North reached a common understanding of the ways of the Confederation(of Korean Commonwealth). When we distinguish a substantive unification from a formal unification, the integration of economic community appertains to the substance of unification as one of significant challenges of the unified constitution. Without the integration of economic community, a formal unification would be unfinished as well as a substantive unification. Based upon these facts, this paper discusses the constitutional legal basis and meaning of the integration of economic community. First, the constitutional meaning of the integration of economic community is that the people in the Korean Peninsula determine and justify the law and order of the Unified Korea for themselves as the subjects of their own lives who live in one economic community as well as the sovereigns of establishing the unified constitution. Furthermore, it could be interpreted that a phased approach to the unification considering the integration of economic community in itself follows from the article 4 of the constitution which prescribes that "The Republic of Korea shall seek unification and shall formulate and carry out a policy of peaceful unification based on the basic free and democratic order." In the result, the integration of economic community of South and North is an essential process to the peaceful unification based on the basic free and democratic order, and a way to obtain democratic legitimacy in the process of unification and the establishment of the unified constitution as well.