Legislating the Relationship Between South and North Korea, a Road for Peace on the Korean Peninsula
Thursday, November 18, 2021
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST
Zoom Event
**THIS IS A HYBRID EVENT. There will be FORTY-FIVE (45) first come, first serve in-person tickets for attendance at the George Washington University’s Elliott School for International Affairs. IN-PERSON TICKETS ARE RESERVED FOR GW STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF. For outside affiliations, there will be tickets available to attend virtually via Zoom.**
**Minister Park will be giving his remarks in Korean. Consecutive interpretation from Korean to English will be provided during both the speech and the Q&A session**
About the Event
Reunification can be understood as an issue of national diplomacy, security or defense. Nevertheless, the course of promoting peace and achieving reunification between the two Koreas, in fact, falls into the legal scope. As seen from the reunification of East and West Germany, the beginning and completion of the discussion on the reunification of a divided nation depends on the construction of laws and systems. The Minister of Justice, who heads the ministry that develops legal systems and is responsible to render and design a legal blueprint for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula, will discuss the beginning of a new era where military confrontation is replaced by legal systems.
Speaker
Justice Minister Park Beom Kye was appointed as the 68th Minister of Justice of the Republic of Korea in January 2021. With over 30 years of experience in the legal field as a judge and attorney at law, Minister Park is also a third term member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. He has been representing Seo District of the city of Daejeon since 2012. As a National Assembly member, Minister Park served in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee for a long period and worked as the Secretary of the Special Committee on Judicial Reform in 2018. He was also the Chief Spokesperson of the Democratic Party. Minister Park served as a member for both the Special Committee on the Investigation of the Illegal Online Meddling in Election Campaigns by the National Intelligence Service (2013) and the Special Committee on the Investigation of the Influence-Peddling Scandal involving President Park Geun Hye’s confidant Choi Soon Sil (2016~2017). Minister Park worked as the Subcommittee Chairman on Political Administration under the National Planning and Advisory Committee, a presidential transition committee, set up by President Moon Jae In in 2017. He was the Secretary to the President for both Civil Affairs II and Legal Affairs during the Roh Moo Hyun administration. Minister Park is married with two sons.
Moderator
Alyssa Ayres is Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, was published in 2018. Ayres is also interested in the emergence of subnational engagement in foreign policy, particularly the growth of international city networks, and her current book project (working title, Bright Lights, Biggest Cities: The Urban Challenge to India’s Future, under contract with Oxford University Press) examines India’s urban transformation and its international implications. From 2010 to 2013, Ayres served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia. She received an AB from Harvard College and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago.
