법원 판결을 통해 살펴 본 국제인권조약의 국내 이행- 국제인권조약의 적용 여부가 문제된 사례를 중심으로 -

As for internal implementation of international human rights treaties, it has asignificant meaning whether the treaties concerned can be invoked before thecourts in actual cases as much as whether they are incorporated into the domesticlegal system. Many guidelines for preparing a country report in accordance withinternational human rights treaties stress the need of including cases where thecourts have quoted the concerned treaties as a trial norm. It is also consideredquite seriously in the process of reviewing such reports. Article 6 of the Korean Constitution prescribes that “treaties duly concluded andpromulgated under the Constitution and the generally recognized rules ofinternational law have the same effect as the domestic laws of the Republic ofKorea.” Accordingly, any international treaties that Korea has signed and ratifiedcan be applied to a domestic court case without legislation. However, apart fromsuch legal ground, international human rights treaties have been invoked only in alimited number of cases, and therefore researches analyzing those cases have neverbeen enough so far. For the purpose of analyzing the current state of internal implementation ofinternational human rights treaties in court rulings, this study finds relevant casesthrough a keyword search based on seven international human rights treaties thatKorea has signed and ratified among the Core International Human RightsInstruments mentioned on the website of the UN Office of High Commissioner forHuman Rights (OHCHR) and tries to categorize the said cases by issue and type of application. With this approach, this article verifies a series of issues in applyingthe international human rights treaties by the courts and makes suggestions toconsider for better implementation of such treaties in domestic cases. By doing so,it could contribute to inducing a progressive change of the courts in Korea tosecure the legal effectiveness of international human rights treaties in the future.