hankyoreh

South and North Korean attendees of an inter-Korean event organized by the private sector convene at Mt. Kumgang Hotel on Feb. 12. (Yonhap News)

The decision to prevent South Korean reporters from bringing their laptop computers and other broadcasting equipment to the first inter-Korean exchange event organized by the private sector this year at Mt. Kumgang on Feb. 12-13 reportedly resulted from the UN Command voicing its concern and the South Korean Unification Ministry failing to respond proactively. But since neither South Korea’s Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act or US domestic law contain any provisions banning laptop computers from being taken into or out of North Korea for the purpose of reporting, there was essentially no legal grounds for blocking the laptops. This is prompting complaints about the freedom of the press being violated.

“The government was working to enable reporters to bring their equipment [to the event at Mt. Kumgang], but that didn’t work out because our deliberations [with the US government] didn’t wrap up before the event,” Unification Ministry Spokesperson Baik Tae-hyun said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

Baik declined to get into the details about why the deliberations stalled, though he observed that “there’s not a major disagreement between South Korea and the US in regard to this issue.”

According to a Hankyoreh investigation, the UN Command raised questions during deliberations that the South Korean and US governments have held since Feb. 8 about the event at Mt. Kumgang and that the US State Department also complained about the lack of adequate preliminary deliberations in the South Korea-US working group.

“The UN Command raised questions and voiced concerns,” said a government source who is familiar with the situation.

The most likely source of a legal objection was the US Commerce Department’s Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which strictly regulate the transportation of strategic materials. While these regulations include the option of making exceptions and setting temporary export and transportation categories that don’t require prior authorization, they do not apply to North Korea.

There is one exception, however. Individuals who belong to an accredited media organization are allowed to temporarily use equipment in North Korea for the purpose of collecting the news, the regulations say, without seeking consent as outlined in the regulations, provided that the equipment in question is physically and effectively controlled. All the reporters need do is send a list of the reporting equipment to the Bureau of Industry and Security at the US Commerce Department. There’s no need to gain approval or authorization.

“The US Commerce Department’s Export Administration Regulations allow news reporting equipment to be taken into North Korea at will, without waiting for permission from the US government. That reflects the US policy of respecting the freedom of the press,” said Kim Gwang-gil, an attorney with the law firm Jipyong who is an expert in sanctions on North Korea.

One proposed legal justification for preventing laptop computers from being taken into North Korea is the ban on the “supply, sale or transfer” of “industrial machinery (HS codes 84 and 85)” that appears in Article 7 of UN Security Council Resolution No. 2397 (adopted on Dec. 22, 2017), the last sanctions resolution that the council imposed on North Korea. But that argument doesn’t hold water, since the reporters were planning to bring their equipment back to South Korea after reporting on the ground and didn’t intend to “supply, sell or transfer” the equipment in question.

In fact, there’s no known precedent of that article serving as the grounds for preventing various foreign media organizations from taking laptop computers or other equipment with them when reporting in North Korea. Furthermore, no issue was made about such equipment being taken into North Korea when reporters from South Korea and four other countries covered the detonation of the nuclear test site at Punggye Village on May 24, 2018, or when South Korean reporters covered the National Unification Conference Commemorating the 11th Anniversary of the Oct. 4 Summit Declaration in Pyongyang on Oct. 4-6, 2018.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer, and Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]