International Economic Law in a Developed Korea,

by Asif H Qureshi, Nany Hur and Jeong Ah Lee

(Routledge, 2026), ISBN 978-1-041-14063-4

Reviewed by Dongchul Kwak

 

International Economic Law in a Developed Korea arrives at a moment of acute institutional stress in the multilateral trading system, which has pursued fair, free, and reciprocal trade for more than 80 years. With the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body in paralysis, the Trump administration’s ‘America First’ trade policy and US-Sino geoeconomic rivalry fracturing global supply chains, economic security and industrial policy resurging around the world, and new governance frontiers emerging in digital trade and climate policy, the question of how a small, open, and trade-dependent economy navigates the turmoil of the contemporary global trading environment has never been more urgent. Nonetheless, traditional international economic law (IEL), which largely reflects the interests and institutional ideas of a handful of powerful economies, has largely forfeited its capacity to adapt to a world characterised by rapid technological change, political multipolarity, and economic fragmentation. As the editors admit, the time has come to ‘highlight the need for a more inclusive, adaptive, and pluralistic approach to IEL’.