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.

Ambassador Ahn is a former diplomat of the Republic of Korea. In Seoul, he used to work as Director-General for Trade, Deputy Minister for Trade and the First Vice Foreign Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He also used to work as Director-General for Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Finance and Economy and as a Sherpa to the President of the country for G-20, G-7 outreach meetings and the APEC. The two foreign postings where he served as an Ambassador were the Brussels, where he represented Korea to the EU, Belgium and NATO concurrently, and Washington DC.

After leaving the government services in 2017, Ambassador Ahn teaches at Korea and Kyungnam Universities and consults Korean businesses.

Ambassador Ahn studied international relations at the Seoul National University (BA) and the Georgetown University (MS). He also studied law at the Korea Open University (LLB) and the Georgetown University (LLM).

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.

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)

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)

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)

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.

Jihyeon Park is Managing Director of JHSUSTAIN international development consulting agency in environment, based in Seoul, which was established in 2017, in particular focused on management of climate-induced disasters and water, adaptation prospect and natural resource management governance.

She started her experience in international cooperation on water at Korea Institute of Civil engineering and building Technology in 2005 and switched her life towards building water governance with multi-stakeholders together in history of establishment of Korea Water Forum.

She has been working on planning and management of policy and programs in the sector for 15 years by playing a role as the coordinator of thematic and political process regarding world water forum and executing ASEAN-ROK cooperation activities since 2014.

She has worked intensively with various stakeholders including government agencies, academia and public institutions in international development projects and international organizations, by conceptualizing and implementing projects, advocating and developing policy for government relations and doing activities for enhancing regional cooperation.