S. Korea seeks diplomatic immunity for officials at Gaeseong complex

By Park Ji-won

The South Korean government has asked North Korea to give diplomatic immunity to South Korean officials who will be stationed at a liaison office to be set up inside the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) in North Korea according to an agreement made at the inter-Korean summit earlier.

According to sources, the South Korean government recently suggested the North grant them immunity from arrest, detention, jurisdiction and testimony of civil and criminal courts for its officials to be stationed in the joint office, in a proposal letter during the high-ranking talks held between the two Koreas on June 1.

It also proposed North Korea guarantee safe passage and communication for the officials and exempt them from checks on their baggage and pouches.

If the proposal is finalized as the South Korean government wants, those officials can be treated like diplomats.

Under the 1961 Vienna Convention, diplomatic envoys "shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention" and the bags they carry may not be opened or detained.

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The move is to improve the past Gaeseong business pacts which have been criticized for lacking details of security guarantees for stationing officials.

So far, North Korea has promised a vague concept of safety for South Korean officials staying in or commuting to and from the GIC.

According to an agreement reached in September 2013 about liaison office in Gaeseong, the two Koreas would guarantee the security, passage and communication of North and South Korean officials there "to the level of delegates of high-ranking inter-Korean meetings."

But the level was unclear and there has been no clear legal ground for the South Korean government to ask for the repatriation of South Korean officials in case they are arrested or detained.

It is not known how the North has responded to the South's recent proposals.

Gaesong is the border city in North Korea where the two Koreas had been running a joint industrial complex beginning in 2004. South Korea, however, closed its operations in February 2016 and brought its officials and workers back to the South in protest of the North's missile and nuclear provocations.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice is preparing the legal grounds for the resumption of inter-Korean economic cooperation.

The ministry started a project of making a revision to several inter-Korean agreements regarding the economic exchanges to better guarantee South Korean companies' investment and protect its people.

It plans to improve clauses about resolving possible conflicts between the North Korean authorities and South Korean companies. "Current agreements have related clauses, but we learned, while operating at the Gaeseong complex, they were insufficient," a ministry official said. "We are preparing revisions to meet the current inter-Korean situations in case inter-Korean economic cooperation is resumed."

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