The Regulatory Framework in North Korea to Marine Plastic and International Plastic Convention

In response to the marine plastic issue, the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) in 2022 has opted to create a novel legally binding international convention. Therefore, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) was initiated with the goal of reaching a consensus for the regulation of the convention. At those meetings, participating countries are having sharp disagreements based on their interests. North Korea is also participating in this agreement. However, nothing is known about North Korea's opinion. Although North Korea is a politically isolated society, it participates in and fulfills its obligations in several international conventions established to resolve international environmental issues. North Korea's marine environment policy and implementation and participation in international environmental conventions directly affect the marine environment of the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, it is important to understand North Korea's current regulatory framework related to marine plastics and its role and limitations in the international plastics agreement. Therefore, this study will investigate North Korea's current regulatory framework related to marine plastics, discussing its role and limitations in the international plastics agreement. To this end, this study first examines the current status of marine plastic in North Korea. This study will also explain the current international regime related to marine plastic and North Korea's marine plastic related legislation. It then describes progress toward establishing a new marine plastics convention. Moreover, this article will illustrate the international environmental conventions in which North Korea participates, as well as North Korea's role and fulfillment of obligations in those conventions. Through this, this article will analyse whether North Korea's current legal system related to marine plastics is at the international level and North Korea's role and limitations in the newly enacted international plastics agreement.