Experience

• 1996-PresentKim & Chang
• 1995-1996Judge, Nambu Branch of Seoul District Court
• 1993-1995Judge, Seoul Civil District Court
• 2017.10.-2023.10.Member, Statutory Interpretation Deliberation Committee, Ministry of Government Legislation
• 2012-2022.8.Adjunct Professor, Sungkyunkwan University Law School

Education

• New York University School of Law (LL.M., 2001)
• Judicial Research and Training Institute of the Supreme Court of Korea (1993)
• College of Law, Seoul National University (LL.B., 1991)

Education

• 19671B.A. College of Law, Seoul National University
• 19701M.A. Graduate School, Seoul National University
• 1978-791International Center, Keio University, Tokyo
• 1985-861Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

Career

• 2013-Member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Security
• 2004-President, National Development Institute, Seoul
• 2004-07Professor, Cheonan University
• 2002-04Chief of Staff to the Speaker Park Kwan-yong of the National Assembly
• 1998-02Senior Visiting Fellow, CSIS, Washington, D.C.
• 1996-98Vice Minister, Ministry of National Unification
• 1993-96Senior Secretary to the President Kim Young-sam, Blue House
• 1991-92Director-General, Asian Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• 1986-89Political Counsellor, Korean Embassy, Tokyo
• 1983-85Director, Japan Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• 1975-77Second Secretary, Korean Embassy, Washington, D.C.

Honors

• 2003Order of Public Service Merit - Yellow Stripes Medal
• 1992Order of Diplomatic Service Merit - Soongrye Medal
• 1984Order of Public Service Merit - Red Stripes Medal

Education

• 2008 Ph.D. in Forestry, Chungnam National University
• 1997 M.S. in Forestry Policy, Michigan State University
• 1987 B.A. in Forestry, Seoul National University

Career

• 2019.12 - 2021. 3 Minister, Korea Forest Service(KFS)
• 2018 - 2019 Deputy Minister, Korea Forest Service
• 2018 Chief Delegate of the Sectoral Meeting on Inter-Korean Forestry Cooperation
• 2017 - 2018 Director General, Planning and Coordination Bureau, KFS
• 2017 Director General, Forest Welfare, KFS
• 2015 - 2017 Director General, Forest Use Bureau, KFS
• 2012 - 2015 Acting / Vice Executive Director, Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO)
• 2011 - 2012 Director General, Forest Resources Policy Bureau, KFS
• 2010 - 2011 Deputy Director General, International Forest Cooperation Office, KFS
• 2007 - 2010 Director, International Cooperation and Resources Team, KFS
• 2004 - 2007 First Secretary (Foresetry Attache), Korean Embassy in Indonesia
• 2003 - 2004 Director, Private Forest Assistance Bureau, KFS
• 2001 - 2003 Executive Secretary to the Minister, KFS
• 1999 - 2001 Senior Deputy Director, Resources Development Division, KFS
• 1994 - 1995 Director, Project Development Division, Andong Forest Center, KFS
• 1991 – 1994 Deputy Director, Forest Management Division, KFS
• 1989 The Public Administration Examination (Technical, the 25th by ordinal number)

Honors

• 2008 Order of Service Merit, Red Stripes
• 1999 Green Public Service Award
• 2012 Co-authoring ‘North Korea Reforestation’ (Seoul National University)

Basic Data

Ambassador Shin Kak-Soo was born on January 16th, 1955 in Young-dong County, Choongbook Province, Korea. He is married with one son and one daughter, and a catholic.

Education

Ambassador Shin graduated from the College of Law at Seoul National University (SNU) in February 1977. He then earned a master’s degree (LLM) in international law from the Graduate School of Law at SNU in February 1979. In 1983 he studied Japanese at the International Center of Japan’s Keio University, and moved to the Department of Law at Tokyo University, majoring in international law in 1984. In August 1991 he earned a S.J.D from the Graduate School of Law at SNU.

Diplomatic Career

In May 1975 Ambassador Shin passed the High Diplomatic Service Examination, and in January 1977 he joined the ministry of foreign affairs. Ambassador Shin started his work at the international legal affairs division and treaties division in the treaties bureau as assistant director from 1977 to 1985.

In January 1986 Ambassador Shin was assigned as first secretary to the Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Japan for three years, and in March 1989 he came back as deputy director of the Japan division at the Asian and Pacific affairs bureau. In February 1990 he was appointed advisor to the vice-minister for foreign affairs, and in August 1993 he was promoted to director of the Japan division at the Asian and Pacific affairs bureau.

Ambassador Shin served as advisor to the foreign minister for the year of 1995. He was then transferred to the Korean Mission to the United Nations in 1996 and worked there as counselor for three years. Following this, Ambassador Shin was assigned to the Korean Embassy to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka as minister-counselor for two years.

In February 2001 he became deputy director-general for the East Asia Study Group at the Asian Pacific affairs bureau, and in January 2002 he was named director-general of the treaties Bureau. After two years of service as legal advisor, he was appointed as dputy permanent representative at the Korean Mission to the United Nations in March 2004.

In February 2006, Ambassador Shin was appointed as ambassador to the State of Israel. After two and half years of service in Israel, he came back to take up the post of second vice-minister in charge of functional affairs in the foreign ministry in July 2008. In November 2009, he was promoted to first vice-minister taking charge of regional affairs. He completed his service as first vice-minister in February 2011. Three months later he came back as ambassador to Japan, and served there for two years until May 2013.

Other Positions

Ambassador Shin taught cadets international law and military criminal law as instructor in the department of law at the Korea Military Academy from 1979 to 1982. He also held the position of instructor in the department of diplomacy at Sogang University in Seoul, Republic of Korea from 1981 to 1982. From 1991 to 1993, Ambassador Shin researched as a visiting fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center of Stanford University in the United States. He also served as director of the Global Green Growth Institute, making contributions during its initial stage of creation in 2010. Ambassador Shin actively participated in joint programs on promotion and dissemination of international humanitarian law in East Asia that were organized by the ICRC. He was briefly a visiting scholar at the School of International Studies of the Peking University before being assigned to ambassador to Japan in 2011. He joined the Korean National Diplomatic Academy as a professor in charge of its International Law Center in November 2013. Since December 2013, he has also been affiliated at the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Seoul National University as a special research fellow.

Membership

Ambassador Shin is a member of the Korean Society of International Law and the Korean Society of International Humanitarian Law. He is also a board member of the Community Chest of Korea and an advisor to the Citizen’s Alliance for North Korean Human Rights.

Publications

Ambassador Shin has written many articles on various issues in international law, Asian Affairs, international organizations and North Korea in academic journals. He also contributed many articles to newspapers and periodicals.

Education

• B.A. in Economics, Seoul National University
• M.S. in Shipping Business, Korea Maritime and Ocean University

Career

• Director General, Marine Environment Bureau, MOF
• Spokesman, MOF
• Minister Counselor, Embassy of Republic of Korea in UK (Alternative Permanent Representative to IMO)
• Deputy Minister, Marine Policy Office, MOF
• Vice Minister, MOF
• Visiting Professor, Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Seoul National University (Present)

Dr. Jong Soo Yoon is currently the senior advisor in the field of environment of the Kim & Chang Law Firm.

He is the former Vice-Minister and Deputy Minister of Environment of Korea and an environmental expert in sustainable development. With over 25 years at the Ministry of Environment, he has focused on the establishment and delivery of policies through various projects in climate change, circular economy, water and sanitation and many other issues. He played a pivotal role in the successful establishment of the second National Strategy for Sustainable Development (2011-2015).

He is the former Head of the United Nations Office for Sustainable Development(UNOSD) based in Incheon, S. Korea. Dr. Yoon graduated from Seoul National University and is a PhD holder in Environmental Engineering from University of Seoul.

Jiyong Eom is the Head of the KAIST Graduate School of Green Growth & Sustainability (GGGS), an Associate Professor in the School of Business & Technology Management (BTM), and the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development (CSD). His research focuses on energy and environmental economics and management, integrated assessment modeling for climate and technology policy analysis, climate financial risk management, and demand-side energy management. His work has been published in numerous refereed journals, including Nature Energy, Global Environmental Change, Energy Economics, Energy Policy, and Climatic Change. Prof. Eom contributed as an author to Chapters 6 and 9 of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report for Working Group III (Mitigation of Climate Change) and was recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in the social sciences in both 2019 and 2020. In 2023, he was selected as one of the top 100 outstanding achievements in national R&D by the Ministry of Science and ICT. He is currently a general member of the Technology Management & Policy Division at the National Academy of Engineering of Korea and serves as an associate editor for the international journals Oxford Open Climate Change and the Journal of Energy Engineering. He holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Yonsei University, an MS degree in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from KAIST, and a Ph.D. in Management Science & Engineering with a concentration in Policy & Strategy from Stanford University.

Prof. Hee Jung Lee is Professor in the area of administrative law, ICT law as well as environmental law at the School of Law, Korea University. Her major academic interest is in the effective and reasonable regulation of private entrepreneurs' behavior to increase public interest in the public utilities industry, platform industry, as well as diminishing environmentally harmful activities. Alternative Dispute Resolution in environmental disputes has been also of her research interest. At present, she is serving as a member of the Personal Information Protection Commission of Korea and of Environmental Damage Compensation Committee in the Ministry of Environment.

Jung-Seok Lee works as a health economist at the International Vaccine Institute. Prior to joining IVI, he worked as a senior health economist focusing on economic evaluations alongside trials at the Health Economics Research Centre in the University of Oxford.

His research interests lie in the economic and spatial perspectives of infectious diseases in relation with climate change. Dr. Lee is particularly interested in linking applied economics and econometrics to geo-spatial analyses. While various health economic analyses such as economic burden, DALY or QALY estimation, and cost-effective analyses have been widely used in public health, a majority of the conventional health economic analyses tend to rely on a small fraction (i.e. financial perspective) of core economic theories. He sees a great potential when applying more diverse economic theories to geo-spatial analyses. In order to improve numerous issues related to climate crisis in the field of public health, he is particularly interested in conducting geospatial analyses using climate and non-climate raster datasets to identify high risk areas for infectious diseases at the small geographical unit and to predict disease outbreaks in advance. His research aims at minimizing overall societal losses in many parts of the world including countries where healthcare resources are highly limited.

Dr. Lee obtained a Ph.D. degree at the University of Oxford. Prior to his study in the UK, he studied in international development and applied economics at Cornell University and University of California, Davis, respectively.

Dr. Sangjun Lee is a associate professor in the Department of Energy Policy at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (Seoultech). His primary field is resource and environmental economics focusing on climate change. Currently, He teaches and conducted research about climate policy in Korea focusing decarbonization of industrial and power sector. Before joining Seoultech, he worked for Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEI) for 9 years. During his career at KEEI, he has several opportunities in the development of several major climate policies in Korea. He participated in the working group for preparing the Korea’s NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution) and Carbon Neutrality Pathways. He also was a member of Korean delegation in the climate negotiations such as UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP).

Eunjung Lim is currently a Professor at Division of International Studies, Kongju National University (KNU). She served as Vice President for International Affairs, Dean of Institute of Korean Education and Culture, and Dean of Institute of International Language Education at the same university (June 2021 – May 2023).

Her areas of specialization include international cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, comparative and global governance, and energy, nuclear, and climate change policies of East Asian countries. She previously served as a board member of Korea Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control (KINAC) from May 2018 to September 2024, and currently serves as a member of Policy Advisory Committee for Ministry of Unification. She is also the chair of Energy and Environment Study Committee of The Korean Association of International Studies.

Before joining the KNU faculty, Dr. Lim served as an Assistant Professor at College of International Studies, Ritsumeikan University, in Kyoto, Japan. She also taught at several universities in the United States and Korea, including Johns Hopkins University, Yonsei University, and Korea University. She has been a researcher and a visiting fellow at academic institutes including the Center for Contemporary Korean Studies at Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at the University of Tokyo, the Institute of Japanese Studies at Seoul National University, the Institute of Japan Studies at Kookmin University, and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ).

She earned a B.A. from the University of Tokyo, an M.I.A. from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Main Publications

“Multilateral Approach to the Back End of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle in Asia-Pacific?” Energy Policy Vol. 99 (2016): 158-164.
“Japan’s Energy Policy under Abe: Liberalization of the Energy Market and Nuclear U-turn,” Seoul Journal of Japanese Studies Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018): 103-131.
“Energy and Climate Change Policies of Japan and South Korea,” in Ashley Esarey, Mary Alice Haddad, Joanna I. Lewis and Stevan Harrell Eds. Greening East Asia The Rise of the Eco-developmental State (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020): 62-75.
“A Comparative Study of Power Mixes for Green Growth: How South Korea and Japan See Nuclear Energy Differently,” Energies Vol.14, no. 18 (2021): 5681.
“How South Korea Sees the United States - Before and After Trump,” in Gregory S. Mahler Ed. Foreign Perceptions of the United States under Donald Trump (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021): 165-179.
“Japan’s Energy Security,” in Keiji Nakatsuji Ed. Japan’s Security Policy (Routledge, 2023): 157-176.
“Japan’s ‘Just Transition’ in Its Development Practices,” Journal of International Politics Vol. 29, No. 1: 43-77.

Sangmin Shim was Assistant Professor and Head of the Center for International Law at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA). Before joining KNDA in 2016 he was visiting scholar at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a private think-tank that conducts research on international environmental law. During his stint at the ELI Professor Shim engaged in a variety of collaborative research projects, including mainstreaming climate adaptation governance, natural resource management governance from the perspective of sustainable development, and environmental peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts.

Professor Shim writes widely on climate change issues, with a focus on designing economically viable, technologically feasible, and politically acceptable policy tools and strategies with significant emission reduction potentials. His academic work also covers conventional international legal issues, such as peace and security in the United Nations, law of the sea, non-proliferation, human rights in North Korea and transitional justice, sustainable development, energy security and human security. He regularly advises officials at the Bureau of International Legal Affairs in Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on newly emerging international legal topics ranging from biodiversity, access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing (ABS) to marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ).

Professor Shim’s legal educational background includes a J.S.D. degree at Stanford University, awarded in 2015 with his dissertation entitled, “Structuring Climate Policy in the Korean Electricity Sector: Politics, Institutions and Mitigative Capacity-Building.” He also holds a J.S.M. degree at the same university, and is a graduate of Seoul National University (B.A. & M.A. in law).

Yonghee YOON, a partner at Yulchon, primarily practices in regulation fields including ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), EHS (Environment, Health and Safety), energy and antitrust. Mr. Yoon began his career at Yulchon in 2009 after finishing his service as a military advocate (judicial officer). Since then, he has mainly focused on legal issues in connection with ESG, EHS, antitrust and other regulatory practices. As a result of his lifelong efforts, not only does he have practical knowledge and experience in various legal fields, but he is also serving as an adjunct law professor, fulfilling his social duties by nurturing future lawyers. Driven by an aspiration to share his experience, knowledge and research findings with an entire society, he has published various articles and books regarding his major practice areas, including ‘the Impacts and Implications of CERCLA on the Soil Environmental Conservation Act of the Republic of Korea’ and ‘Extraterritorial Application of US Antitrust Law’ etc. Based on his abundant work expertise and experience. Mr. Yoon was selected as top lawyer in the field of ESG in the 2022 Korean Law Firm Evaluation (by The Law Times) and as rising star in the fields of ESG and compliance management in the 2023 Lawyer Evaluation (by Korea JoongAng Daily and the Korea In-house Counsel Association) due to his extensive expertise and experience and positive client reviews.