‘경제안보’의 법적 의미와 외연: 국제법적 측면을 중심으로

Economic Security has become a term of art both domestically and internationally. Many governments adopt a wide range of measures to protect their geopolitical and geoeconomic interests and refer to ‘economic security’ as their rationale. In some instances, obvious violations of existing treaties and international agreements are brushed off by dint of “national security” exceptions of those international instruments. Indeed economic security does cover a broad range of national policies and strategies of many countries. And yet, few analyses have been conducted on the meaning and scope of economic security from the ‘legal’ perspectives. This article argues that economic security as we understand today still falls under the purview of ‘national security’ jurisprudence of international law. As such, national security exceptions contained in existing treaties and/or necessity defence under customary international law should apply to the economic security dialogue. This realization and confirmation of the legal parameter will help the global community tackle economic security debates in a more predictable and reliable manner, which will then pave the way for a new governance regime of the international economic law, which is on the table at various forums at the moment. This understanding also sheds important light on the current debate on global supply chains, one of the core issues of the economic security dialogue. In some critical areas and as regards some critical products, global supply chains are currently being reformulated and restructured. Most vivid examples include semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Arguably, the current discussion of supply chains is being mainly driven by geopolitical and geoeconomic consideration by key stakeholders. In the meantime, however, few discussions have been conducted from the perspective of international law. This obvious absence of legal discourse seems to be problematic because the supply chain debates would apparently implicate key provisions of various existing treaties and agreements one way or another. One of the main reasons for a ‘legal discussion vacuum’ at present seems to lie in the notion that any measure relating to supply chains may well be justified by national security exceptions included in treaties and agreements. It may be true that national security exceptions can cover some aspects of supply chain-related issues. But it may not be the case that any and all aspects of supply chain-related measures are covered and justified by national security exceptions. Such being the case, supply chain measures need to be examined from the prism of international law, most notably national security exceptions, to see whether and to what extent they are (not) justified by the exceptions and remain compatible with current international norms. If not, serious discussions should begin as soon as possible at relevant global forums as to new elements and contours of national security exceptions relating to economic interests in order to reflect the fast changing circumstances and concerns of states at this critical juncture.