2024년 「북러 포괄적 전략동반자관계조약」에 대한 국제법적 검토

Russian president Putin’s 2nd visit to North Korea this year raised an important question regarding the probable new relationship between Russia and North Korea. Until recently, their bilateral relations seemed to be less closer than North Korean relations with China, especially after 1961 Mutual Assistance Treaty between North Korea and USSR was terminated around the end of the Cold War. In this context, closer new relations between Russia and North Korea would be expected to be possible, with some conclusions of bilateral treaties including so-called mutual assistance or alliance treaty. The contents of the new 2024 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty between North Korea and Russia seems to be more diverse and more strong than previous another treaty concluded between the two countries in 2000. However, though it contains a provision regulating some mutual assistance in a situation of armed conflicts, the provision also contains some conditions for it to be applied. Russian domestic law and practice seems to be actually important in this regard. This paper basically review the contents of the 2024 Treaty between Russia and North Korea from the international legal perspective. For that, this paper also look into some previous treaties between the two countries and also investigate other so-called alliance treaties among other countries. After these, this paper concludes with some observations and suggestions from more policy-oriented perspective.