ISDS 절차의 투명성 제고에 관한 연구

After three years of negotiation, the ‘UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty- based Investor-State Arbitration’ came into effect on April 1, 2014 which can be considered as a first step toward an improvement of transparency in Investor-State Arbitration(ISA). In spite of some oppositions against this new attempt, there is widespread support from international community. Also its necessity has been confirmed through several ISDS cases, and there are additional movements toward transparency by not only arbitration institutions but also states, such as ICSID which presented its intention to introduce stronger transparency provisions like those of UNCITRAL Transparency Rule, and also national states like USA or Canada which stipulated a high-level transparency provisions in each IIAs. These definitely show that the Investment Arbitration regime recognizes the importance of transparency in ISA and tries to produce more transparent and reliable outcome. The Korean government is still reluctant to introduce transparency in ISA because there is a practical reason behind it. For example, from the government’s standpoint, it concerns about how those transparency provisions will affect the national law system. In that regard, the Korean government’s stance is understandable, but it is time to accept changes and go further. The government needs to introduce measures before adopting transparency provisions, such as revision of national laws to protect confidential information, and providing comprehensive lists of confidential information and exceptions in IIA. Also it needs to prepare measures to keep administrative procedures and documents transparent and educate government officers to manage them well.