Toward a Digital KORUS FTA: Legal Reforms for Data, AI, and E-Commerce Governance

The United States–Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), signed in 2007 and amended in 2018, was negotiated in a pre-digital era and contains no provisions on data flows, AI, platforms, or cybersecurity. This gap has left KORUS increasingly outdated, even as the United States and Korea have become leaders in digital innovation and regulation. This Note explores the extent to which the KORUS Free Trade Agreement can be reinterpreted and restructured to serve as a credible framework for digital trade governance between the United States and Korea. It argues that reform is both urgent and possible, but only if grounded in legal realism and structured to reflect domestic regulatory contexts. Through comparative analysis of CPTPP, USMCA, and DEPA, it demonstrates why advanced digital provisions cannot simply be transplanted into KORUS. Instead, it proposes a layered model for a “Digital KORUS 2.0”: binding rules on data and source code combined with soft-law cooperation on AI and platform governance, positioning U.S.–Korea cooperation at the center of Indo-Pacific digital governance.