한국의 제3차 OECD EPR(환경성과평가) 심층평가 주제인 환경정의 분야에 대해 환경정의연구소에서는 지난 10년 정책평가를 진행하고 의견서를 제출하였습니다.

1. This report aims to provide environmental
NGO’s perspective on environmental
justice policy of South Korea in drafting
OECD Environmental Performance Review.
Critical Review of
Environmental Justice
in South Korea
Environmental Justice Institute of
Citizen’s Movement for Environmental
Justice, CMEJ
August 31, 2016
Jun

2. i
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................................1
2. Structure of Environmental Injustice in South Korea................................................................3
3. Major Environmental injustice Problems (2005-2016) .............................................................4
3.1 Nuclear power plants and environmental justice .............................................................4
3.2 High-voltage Transmission Lines........................................................................................7
3.3 Environmental injustice in Geomuldaeri and Chowonjiri, Gimpo City......................8
4. Policy Recommendation for Environmental Justice in Korea ...............................................10
4.1 Legal and institutional reform to curb one-dimensional development......................10
4.2 Procedural Justice.................................................................................................................13
4.3 Corrective Justice..................................................................................................................15
References.................................................................................................................................................16
Acknowledgement
We are sincerely grateful for all invaluable presentations, comments and corrections made by
participants in the seminars and workshops organized by Environmental Justice Institute for
this study. In particular, we specially thank to Myungrae Cho (Prof. of Dankuk Univ.), Sun-
Jin Yun(Prof. of Seoul National Univ.), Sang-Heon Lee (Prof. of Hansin Univ.), Jae-Kyung
Ko (Dr., Gyeonggi Research Institute), Sang-Yun Lee (Dr., Korea Environment Institute,
KEI), Eun-Ju Kang (Eco Horizon Institute), Jin-Hong Kim (Prof. of Chungang Univ.),
Young-Jae Lee (Dr., KEI), Tae-Hyun Park (Prof., of Gangwon Univ.), Chang-Shin Park
(Lawyer, Changjo), Sang-Hyuk Lim (Director, Institute for Occupational & Environmental
Health).

3. 1
Critical Review of Environmental Justice in South Korea
Prepared for OECD Environmental Performance Review of South Korea
Jung-Min Yu
(Deputy Director, Environmental Justice Institute)
1. Introduction
Background and purpose of the study
The Environmental Performance Review (EPR) of South Korea (hereafter Korea) is supposed
to be published by OECD in 2016. The report will review and evaluate Korea’s
environmental policy for the last 10 years and make some policy suggestions to improve the
country’s performance of environmental policy. Among the agenda covered by the report,
policies for environmental justice and toxic chemicals management are special focus. It can
be assumed that this report will make use of every chances to get better understanding of the
issues by examining exhaustive source of literatures and having conversations with many
stakeholders including researchers, academic scholars and NGO activists as well as
government officials. However, it is also worried that a large part of OECD EPR inevitably
depend on the sources of the governmental side. Accordingly, the civil society is raising
concerns whether EPR can make an objective and fair evaluation and propose legitimate
policy suggestions on such important environmental issues for Korea. This concerns are not
because worrying unduly but because many experts and environmental communities largely
agree that environmental justice policy in Korea has not made significant progress for the last
10 years and even has gone backward in some ways. Given a series of accidents of toxic
chemical leakage and recent problems of humidifier cleaner that took hundreds of lives in
Korea, government policy for management of toxic chemicals has been seriously defective.
In this regard, Citizens’ Movement for Environmental Justice (CMEJ), an environmental
NGO in Korea, initiated a project that aims to review environmental justice issues of Korea
for the last 10 years and make some policy recommendations that can be incorporated into
the OECD EPR of Korea. This report is result of four seminars and couple of workshops with
academic scholars, lawyers, researchers, and environmental activists who have been working
in the area of environmental justice for a long time. We believe it provides a more
comprehensive perspective than government self-evaluation of environmental justice issues
in Korea.

4. 2
Scope of the study
Environmental justice debate was originally focused on inequity in distribution of
environmental bads. It was disproportionate distribution of toxic chemicals landfill that
triggered environmental justice (racialism) in 1980s in US. Since then, the concept of
environmental justice expands in terms of scope and geographical scale, including labor
movement, food justice, indigenous rights to the former and global inequities such as climate
justice to the latter (Schlosberg, 2013). The definitions and focus of environmental justice
varies depending on the socioeconomic perspectives—liberal utilitarianism,
communitarianism and Marxism. In this regard, it is not possible and necessary to precisely
define environmental justice here. Still, it might be necessary to have a relevant framework of
environmental justice for the purpose of identifying the problems and providing practical
policy recommendations. Environmental justice is generally interpreted through three core
concepts: distributive, procedural, and substantive justice. At the risk of being too simple,
each pillar can be defined as follows: distributive justice refers to equal distribution of
environmental bads and goods; Procedural justice may be understood as meaningful
participation in the decision making process and substantive justice refers to the right for all
to enjoy environmental goods. There are many complex and profound issues related with
such definitions when we delve into further. For example, some are more concerned about
distribution between different classes, races, and genders while others are more concerned
about international or intergenerational distribution. With regard to procedural justice, some
may raise question about the effectiveness of dialogue and deliberation to reach a consensus
and to achieve sustainability. Instead of analyzing all this aspects of environmental justice,
we, in this study, take more pragmatic approach by focusing on narrower scope and scale of
environmental justice. Regional inequity, particularly urban and non-urban, and lack of public
participation in government development projects are identified as most direct and important
causes of environmental injustice in Korea. We also attempts to suggest more practically
implementable and urgently needed policy options. The following chapter will discuss the
underlying background and mechanisms of how environmental injustice have been produced
in Korea. It is also worth providing some case studies for OECD EPR evaluation team to
grasp the reality, which is presented in chapter 3. This review presents some policy
recommendations towards more environmentally just society as a conclusion in chapter 4.

5. 3
2. Structure of Environmental Injustice in South Korea
Korea has achieved rapid industrialization in the past decades, which is hardly matched with
any other country’s experience. What made this ‘success’ possible can be explained in many
ways but ‘developmental state’ model led by authoritarian government and its strong
collaboration with large business conglomerates (called chaebols) is regarded as a single
most important factor. In this development process, economic growth represented by GDP
and export growth has been always prioritized and necessary for military regime’s legitimacy.
Accordingly, environmental consideration and social inequality has been disregarded and the
voices about these problems were frequently silenced with repressive violence by the
government because they were seen as threats to the government and national security.
Environmental degradation and its disproportionate effects on local residents was
increasingly recognized in many development projects. People in the development sites such
as mega-industrial complex, power plants, transmission lines, dams and urban land re-
development were forced to leave their living place without sufficient compensation for their
loss of means of livelihood or to be exposed to adverse environmental effects permanently. It
was not until late 1990s that environmental injustice problems in the development projects
became important agenda for environmental civil movement and academic research in a full
scale.
The causes and the way in which environmental injustice is produced in Korea can be
explained in several ways. First, as discussed above, with a legacy of developmental state,
state-led development projects still have been the main cause of most serious environmental
injustice problems in Korea. As government development policy is mostly made through top-
down process lacking transparency and public participation, there is not much public space
for discussions on how to allocate resources and environmental risks in a fair manners. As a
result, development benefits are disproportionally distributed, often creating fierce protest
from local residents who in most cases have to take environmental and economic burden
without proper compensation and recognition. Second, environmental deregulation,
particularly advocated and sought to under the last two administrations, also resulted in
adverse environmental impacts and exacerbated environmental injustice. Government has
relaxed land use and environmental regulations for business investment and economic
revitalization. In 2014, Ministry of Environment announced that it would abolish or relax 75%
of existing regulations by 2016. Although strict regulations are necessary for the
environmentally sensitive areas including the places close to the waterfront, protected
habitats, and special region with higher standards of air quality, deregulations have been
promoted in such areas in the name of economic investment and business attraction. Adverse
environmental impacts from the unregulated small plants located in villages at Geomuldaeri
at Gimpo city is a typical case of environmental injustice resulted from the government’s

6. 4
weak regulations and accountability (see section 2).
It is important to note that identification of the victims of environmental injustice in Korea
needs multi-dimensional approach. In other words, unlike US with racial discrimination,
there is no predominant class of people who can be identified as victims of environmental
injustice in Korea. Victims of environmental injustice are found to be the biological weak, the
poor or rural residents lacking the political power and economic leverage, depending on the
nature of development projects. This does not mean that environmental injustice is not a
distinctive problem in our society but more contextual and multi-layered approach is needed
to understand and tackle environmental injustice problems in Korea (Cho, 2012).
3. Major Environmental injustice Problems (2005-2016)
3.1 Nuclear power plants and environmental justice
Nuclear power was literally Korea’s powerhouse behind rapid industrialization. Despite the
global downturn in the nuclear industry in the 1970s, which was later exacerbated by the
Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear accidents, Korea built 15 nuclear reactors in just 20
years starting from the country’s first reactor completed in 1978. To date, Korea has 24
nuclear power plants operating in four nuclear complexes (it will be 25 when Singori 3 re-
starts commercial operation that is expected in sometime in 2016).
Nuclear power was not just for electricity generation, it also played a role as a test bed for
indigenization of modern technologies, accumulation of capital, and the creation of an
economic structure centered on large conglomerates, known as chaebols, all central to Korean
industrialization. Recently, other roles have also been arguably granted to nuclear power as
announced by President Lee, elected in December 2007, under the “Low Carbon Green
Growth” policy. The Green Growth Policy holds nuclear power as a clean energy which can
resolve the climate change problem, and as another made-in-Korea export product that will
help provide the nation with sustainable growth. Even after the Fukushima nuclear accident
in March 2011, Korean government’s strong pro-nuclear position has not changed, or not
even been diminished (Yu, 2011). It keeps pursuing a spent fuel recycling system by
developing pyroprocessing and a Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) as well as nuclear waste
disposal facilities. In 2015, government announced that it would develop a new site for
nuclear power plants despite the strong opposition from residents of nuclear candidate sites
and civil society.
However, as far as civil society is concerned, such claims of nuclear power are no longer

7. 5
legitimate and acceptable for many reasons. Most of all, as Fukushima nuclear accident
showed, the nuclear power is not safe and its risk far exceed human dimension. Moreover, as
four nuclear complexes are close to main industrial and urban areas including Ulsan and
Busan, the probable damage of nuclear accident in Korea would be incomparable with
Fukushima accident. Despite general perception, many studies show that Korean southern
east area where most of nuclear reactors are densely built might be vulnerable to seismic
activities. Even though Korea government has plans to build nuclear disposal facility and
develop reprocessing for treatment of spent fuel, the economic and technological feasibility,
besides social acceptability, has not been proved and astronomic expenses would be required
in the future. In this regard, civil society has continued to call for immediate reconsideration
of supply-oriented energy policy that eventually led to continuous development of large-scale
nuclear and fossil-fired power plants.
Nuclear power also poses serious environmental injustice problems. Most nuclear power
plants are located in the rural areas where economic and political power are weak compared
with urban areas. As a result, the local residents are more exposed to potential accident and
health risks of nuclear power plant while the benefits of electricity services are enjoyed by
urban and industrial consumers. Adverse health risks to local residents are recently
recognized. In 2014, the Busan local court made a decision that the Korea Hydro and Nuclear
Power Company (KHNP) is responsible for the patients of thyroid cancer who lived near
Gori nuclear power plants. This is the first decision made by the court that recognizes the
health impacts to local residents by nuclear power plants.
Radioactive waste disposal sites
Treatment of nuclear wastes from the reactors has been a critical issue for a long time.
Government’s plan to build a permanent nuclear waste disposal facilities started in mid-1980s
but was confronted with strong resistance from local residents and environmental civil society.
It was in part because local people were concerned about the safety of storage of highly
hazardous materials for long period of time. But what made people most resent about was the
way in which the decision was made. Government’s decision on siting was made through
unilateral DAD (decide-announce-defense) way, excluding people who might be most
adversely affected by the facility.
Recognizing the difficulties in deciding the site though top-down approach, government’s
nuclear waste siting process has changed since 2000s. In order to facilitate the siting process,
government separated low-to-medium radioactive waste repository and high-level radioactive
waste disposal. The siting process also shifted to public appealing for subscription with
provision of substantial financial aids for the place that would accept the facilities. In 2005,
Gyungju with highest approval rate at the local referendum was finally selected as the site for
low-to-medium radioactive waste repository. Although it was regarded as a progress in terms

8. 6
of introduction of bottom-up participation, notably referendum, many issues still remain
controversial. It is criticized that geological assessment of the region was not fully reflected
in the evaluation of the candidate areas. Concerns about vulnerability of the repository
against geological defaults such as seismic activities and intrusion of underground water
continue to be raised by the environmental NGOs and many experts. In fact, this claim was
validated when discharge pumps designed for 40 years of lifetime were replaced due to
corrosion after only one year of operation. The process through which local residents
accepted the repository may not as democratic as it seems to be. As discussed previously, the
area where the facility is located is peripheral region lacking economic opportunities in the
uneven national development strategy. It must be hard decision for local residents to give up
government financial aids and promised investment because it might be seen as their only
opportunity to raise their standard of living considerably in a short period of time. In this
regard, we hardly agree that the decision of local residents were made voluntarily or
democratically, not to mention all the manipulation in the referendum. One of the important
issues regarding the Gyungju radioactive waste repository is how to use government’s
financial aids for the local communities. It is pointed out that the local residents who agreed
to accept the hazardous facility have not benefited from the government’s financial aids and
the fund is often used as local government’s general expenses. It produced a typical
environmental injustice problem of disproportionate allocation of benefits of development.
Currently, government is planning to build a permanent disposal for high-level nuclear wastes.
For this purpose, government formed a Public Engagement Commission on Spent Nuclear
Fuel Management in 2013, which aimed to make suggestions on spent fuel management.
Upon the suggestions by the commission, government drafted Framework for High-Level
Radioactive Waste Management in May 2016. However, the commission is largely criticized
for its lack of transparency and accountability. In fact, civil groups refused to participate in
the process of public engagement commission and even two members recommended by civil
society resigned at the beginning day of the commission. Accordingly, there are mounting
concerns about government’s Framework as well. Most of all, it is concerned that the pace of
building the facility is too short. According to the Framework, government plans to select the
site by 2028 and the permanent repository will be completed by 2052. Given the fact that it
took 30 years to decide the repository site for low-to-medium nuclear waste, it is argued that
government plant for permanent disposal in 12 years for spent fuel which is much more toxic
is highly unrealistic. In such a fast pace, it is concerned that consultation with local
communities and geological and technical analysis might be easily neglected and poorly
conducted.

9. 7
3.2 High-voltage Transmission Lines
High-voltage transmission lines (HVTL) has long been critical environmental justice issue in
Korea. For the more than ten years, local protest against HVTL in Milyang in the Gyeongnam
Province have continued even though it was completed in 2014 with government’s ruthless
exercise of physical power. It shows the typical case of environmental injustice that allocates
unfair benefits and costs of development project. The following is the brief review of how
local protest against Milyang transmission line project has evolved.
Milyang 765kV transmission lines (39.15km) were part of transmission project that connects
Shingori nuclear power plant to North Gyeongnam transforming station. Total project cost is
about $4.5 billion. The project was first planned in 2000 in the “5th
Long-term Power Supply
Plan”, government biannual power supply plan. The board of Korea Electric Power
Corporation (KEPCO), state-owned electricity company and is responsible for providing and
managing reliable transmission and distribution, decided to build the HVTL in 2004. It was
2007 that the first public hearing was held, after the route for HVTL was already decided by
KEPCO. Despite strong local opposition to the government plan, government approved
KEPCO’s plan and the project started in August 2008. In 2011, one of the residents in
Milyang took his life as a protest to government unilateral enforcement. This accident led to
90 days of suspension of construction but KEPCO restarted it again June 2012 despite
undiminished opposition. As problems got worse, National Assembly intervened and formed
Mediation Council consisting of experts to resolve the problem in May 2013. However, the
Council turned into being futile mainly due to the irreconcilable position and lack of
accountability of experts who participate on behalf of government.
There are typical environmental injustice problems in the Milyang transmission project. First,
the procedural environmental justice was seriously undermined by the lack of public
participation in the decision making process. The site for the transmission lines was decided
by the “Advisory Committee of Siting Transmission” of KEPCO, which has not legal
legitimacy. Although the power facility developers are required to hold a public hearing, it
did not necessarily to oblige them to reflect those opinions proposed by the people who are
affected by the projects. In fact, the main reason for local people were against the HVTL is
not just their loss of income or means of livelihood but the fact that they felt excluded and
unrecognized from the decision making process that have direct effect on them, and the
facility being built in their place in the name of national project was inconvincible. Second,
local resident’s environmental rights was greatly constrained by the lack of information by
the government and developer, KEPCO. According to Law for Electricity Development
Facilitation, developer is required to make public the implementation plan at newspaper and
internet webpage for 14 days. However, it is unlikely that local residents mostly consisting of
the old could access those information and understand enough in two weeks. Third, there was
critical problems in compensating people affected. Without legal foundation, the

10. 8
compensation for local residents largely depend on the developer, KEPCO. As the financial
assistance provided by KEPCO is arbitrary and indirect, it was actually used to divide
communities to facilitate the project rather than providing proper compensation for the loss
and damages. Furthermore, as discussed in the following chapter, electricity facility
developer is allowed to expropriate the land necessary for the project once it is designated as
power electricity development areas. In such legal setting, local residents in the electricity
development area have not much options to offset their economic losses.
Faced with fierce local opposition (two residents made a suicides to protest the plan), a
Special Law for Compensation Assistance for Local Residents in the Transmission Area were
passed in 2013. However, it is criticized that the compensation stipulated in this law is not
enough for the losses of local residents. For example, according to the law, people in the area
of transmission routes with 345kV and 765kV are only eligible for the compensation.
Although 154kV accounts for two thirds of total transmission lines and its effects are not
significantly different from that of 345kV and above, it is not fair to exclude them form
eligible compensation scope. Further, the distance from the transmission lines for eligibility
for compensation should be within 33m and 13m for 765kV and 345kV, respectively, which
is way far conservative range for the proper compensation for the property losses of the local
farmers whose land is only the means of livelihood.
<Table 1> Power transmission lines and supports
Year Line Length (c-km) Support Structure (no.)
765kV 345kV 154kV 66kV
180kV
(DC)
Total
Steel
tower
Steel
column
Concrete
column
Wood
column
Steel
pipe
2008 755 8,310 20,298 335 231 29,928 38,713 121 1,039 41 368
2009 755 8,552 20,469 250 231 30,257 38,885 116 828 39 393
2010 835 8,580 20,777 253 231 30,676 39,391 117 825 39 438
2011 835 8,653 21,280 251 231 31,249 39,702 120 823 39 466
2012 835 8,770 21,578 208 231 31,622 39,980 125 822 38 566
3.3 Environmental injustice in Geomuldaeri and Chowonjiri, Gimpo City
Unmanaged land development is one of the key causes of environmental injustice problems
in Korea. For example, if protective regulations lifted in the preserved area followed by
mindless land development, it may result in inter-generational injustice, significantly
undermining the next generation’s desire to meet their needs for environmental resources.

11. 9
The land development almost always raise the rent too high for indigenous residents to stay
and they are excluded from the development benefits. Siting of locally unwanted facilities is
another main cause of environmental injustice brought by unmanaged land use. What
happened in Geomuldaeri and Chowonjiri in Gimpo is the case of environmental injustice
resulted from unmanaged land use policy and unaccountability of local and national
government.
In Korea, types of land can be broadly classified as urban, managed, agricultural and natural
land. The managed land is kind of buffer zone between urban and non-urban, which can be
protected or used with legitimate plan. This managed land can be divided into three different
land types depending upon population, proximity to urban center and natural environment
conditions: preservation area, production area (mostly agriculture) and planning area.
Planning area is designated to accommodate people and industry from the urban area with
systematic planning. Unmanaged land development centered in the planning area, which was
brought by continuous deregulations of the land use since mid-2000. In 2005, plants with size
of under 10,000m2
were allowed to be built in the planning area. 23 out of 79 prohibited
industries were also allowed to move in to this area in 2008 and plants with 5,000m2
or below
were exempt from Prior Environmental Review. There was a provisions in the “Law for
Industrial Concentration and Plant Construction,” stating that local government can prohibit
the siting of plants if there would be significant adverse impacts from the plants on the local
residents or environment.” But the provisions were also abolished in 2008.
With these siting restrictions lifted, what happened in Geomuldaeri and Chowonjiri in Gimpo
was that many small-to-medium plants (casting, furniture manufacturing etc.) have surged to
the planning area. There were 6,000 plants registered in the city and it would be increased to
10,000 if the plants exempt from approvals considered. To make matter worse, most of the
plants in Gimpo are built individually without proper environmental infrastructure to treat
pollutions. As a result, the plants are often located just next to residential areas, even just next
to door (see figure 1 and 2).
As a result, local residents raised concerns about the environmental damages including
emissions of toxic chemicals and particulates, noise and odor from the plants and adverse
health effects including chronic headache have been reported. In 2013, environmental
pollution and health impact assessment was conducted and higher concentration of heavy
metals including cadmium, arsenic, nickel and lead was found in soil, agricultural crops and
air. However, the responses of the local and central governments to this findings were
disappointing. Gimpo city in charge of permitting license of operation and supervision of
hazardous facilities showed lukewarm attention and even inaction to the environmental
damages that occurred in its own district of jurisdiction. Even though it was found that the
particulates released from the casting plants contained hazardous materials, Gimpo city was
delinquent in dealing with the problems, insisting there was no problems in permitting such
plants. Gimpo city even tried to belittle and cover up the results of the environmental analysis

12. 10
rather than actively addressing the issues. It is only after residents raised a lawsuit against the
city government that the Gimpo city admitted the toxic chemicals in the emissions and
ordered closure of the emission facilities. Central government also failed to resolve the
problems by shifting responsibility of supervision of polluting facilities to the local
governments. In December 2015, despite the environmental problems in Geomuldaeri and
Chowonjiri, central government even attempted to revise the “Enforcement Decree of the
Clean Air Conservation Act” to allow emission facilities generating specified hazardous air
pollutants such as casting factories that had been prohibited from siting in the planning areas.
<Figure 1> Houses surrounded by plants
(2013, Chowonjiri)
<Figure 2> House adjacent to plant
(2013, Geomuldaeri)
Source: Kim (2015)
4. Policy Recommendation for Environmental Justice in Korea
4.1 Legal and institutional reform to curb one-dimensional development
Incorporating Principles of Environmental Justice into Government Development Planning
There have been serious environmental injustice problems in many government development
projects in Korea as discussed earlier. Fundamental reason for this is efficiency and growth
rationale predominantly embedded in government policy practices. Lack of transparency and
public participation in the decision making process are often justified for national interests or
economic competiveness. In addition, large development projects initiated by political and
economic interests often disregard environmental and protective regulations, leading to
reckless development without considering adverse environmental impacts and its
disproportionate burden to the vulnerable. In such projects, even cost-benefits analysis that is

13. 11
basic component of project evaluation are frequently absent or poorly done. Four River
Project, Saemangeum Reclamation Projects, and urban development projects are those
examples.
Even though principles of environmental right and environmental justice are, at least
implicitly, stipulated in the Constitution and Environmental Policy Law, they remain nominal
and ineffective when it comes to actual practice of government decision-making process. In
this regard, it is very important to bring the principles of environmental justice into
government policy process in a substantive way. Establishing an overarching and effective
legal foundation that enforces the government departments to incorporate environmental
justice in the early stage of development projects will be the first and most important step.
Abolishment of special laws for reckless development
Many special laws and enforcement ordinance takes the precedence over the basic laws,
which frequently undermine the original intent of the basic laws. Law for Electricity
Development Facilitation established in authoritarian government in 1970s is the typical
example. There are many preemptive stipulations in this law as follows:
 Once permitted to build electricity facilities, the developers are exempt of approvals
required by 16 laws including land and use and planning law, river management law,
natural parks law, agricultural land law (Clause 6)
 The developer of electricity facilities are allowed to expropriate or use the land that is
necessary for the development of power facilities (Clause 6)
 The developer of electricity facilities is allowed to continue without public hearing it
the hearing is not held for some reasons such as intentional interruptions or proceeds
improperly.
These provisions virtually prevent local governments and communities from considering and
exercising their legitimate rights in the process of decision making while giving
disproportionate legal rights to developers. Developers of power supply facilities are even
granted a right for land expropriation on behalf of government, which should be dealt with in
public sphere with concrete rules and standards.
One of the important special laws that critically undermine the environmental integrity and
justice is Special Law for Water Front Development that is part of follow-up legislation of
Four River Project. The Four River Project was initiated by former president Lee as a main
project in the Green Growth policy in 2007. It was basically to construct 16 dams and

14. 12
dredges to prevent flood and drought, which raised strong opposition for the fear of adverse
environmental and social impacts the project would bring about. To date, 4 years after the
completion, arguably, of the project, most of the concerns raised by environmental activists
and experts have come to reality. The dams constructed without prudent design and enough
time period now need huge maintenance expenses every year, the water quality are
exacerbated as contrary to the government plan and livelihood of local communities
depending on farming and fishing near the river front have been collapsed. In addition, the
financial liquidity of K-Water, a state-owned company, has been substantially deteriorated for
the excessive loan for 22 trillion won project. Special Law for Water Front Development was
introduced to allow K-Water recover such huge investment by developing designated water
front district. However, the development projects by this special law cause many
environmental and social problems as they preempt the other protective regulations such as
metropolitan development plan and national land use plan. Besides legal foundation of
principle of environmental justice, it is necessary to repeal or substantially reform some
special laws that narrowly-focus on economic development creating considerable
environmental harms and social inequity.
Strengthening environmental regulations
As examined previously, recent government policy orientation to deregulation in land, water
and natural parks management are increasingly threatening livelihood of local communities
as well as environmental sustainability. At the brink of moving towards a more advanced
economy, South Korea is now required to restructure its industry from energy and pollution
intensive to a co-evolutionary economy in which economic development is more inclusive
and sustainable. In order to do so, strong, rather than loose, environmental regulations need to
be firmly established. It is also important to note that institutional settings are not sufficient
condition for environmental justice and sustainability. Korea has introduced a number of
regulations and laws to ensure environmental performance, ranging from air and water
quality, climate change, renewable energy, and so forth. However, it does not translate into
good performance.
Korea is the first nation to adopt Green Growth as a new development paradigm in 2007.
Korea INDC submitted to UNFCCC in 2015 aims to reduce 37% of GHG compared to BAU
by 2030. These policies are often presented as an indicator of environmental performance of
Korea but it cannot be accepted as its face value. Green Growth turned out to be a green-wash
after all, mostly focused on continuing economic growth and Korea’s GHG reduction target is
simply not that ambitious as Korea acclaimed.1
As a means to accomplish the emission target,
1
With regard to climate change issues, government GHG reduction target announced in INDC is
actually regressive rather than progressive. First of all, as the current target is pegged to BAU, it might
mislead artificial GHG reduction rather than real reduction. One of the loopholes of Korea’s target is

15. 13
Korea introduced carbon cap-and-trade in 2015 but its effectiveness was greatly undermined
by many policy loopholes, including generous quota and too many flexibility for industrial
sector.
In this regard, how the regulations are designed and implemented is probably more important
than the presence of regulations.
4.2 Procedural Justice
Procedural justice cannot be over-emphasized in the discussion of environmental justice. In
fact, in many environmental injustice cases, lack of transparency and participation in
decision-making process has been the critical issue in Korea. Procedural justice roughly
means access to information, unequal participation, deliberation without coercive influence,
and substantive power to decide. It is also important to note that this democratic governance
has to be started as early as in the decision-making process. We propose some policy reforms
to improve procedural justice as follows:
Screening mechanism for evaluating the necessity of large project
As reviewed previously, government development projects are usually decided in a top-down
way without enough public consultation process. Once projects decided, the government’s
main strategy commonly adopted is appeasement and persuasion of local residents at best. In
this decision making process, it is not surprising to see fierce and extreme oppositions from
the local residents in many national projects because all the important decisions were already
made before they were informed of the projects. In this regard, it is necessary to have some
kind of screening process to deliberate the necessity of large-scale projects in a more
participatory way.
Improving strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is one of the methods to evaluate and
screen out the projects that may pose irreversible environmental damages and unequal social
impacts. The purpose of SEA is to assess the environmental impacts on the sustainability of
policy, plan and programs. However, it currently plays very limited role in screening the
projects that might imposes disproportionate environmental effects. One of the issues is the
that 11.3% of reduction would come from non-domestic sources, which may critically undermines the
country’s commitment to climate change mitigation efforts. It is also problematic that the national
climate change policy and energy policy are contradictory each other. For example, the 6th
National
Electricity Supply Basic Plan in 2013 confirmed 15.8GW of fossil fuel plants for the nest 15 years,
which is clearly inconsistent with government GHG reduction target previously announced in the
international climate change negotiation.

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scope of mandatory development plans or policy to be consulted under the Environmental
Impact Assessment Law. In particular, major land use and energy plans, such as Metropolitan
Urban Development Plan, National Energy Basic Plan and Framework of Power Supply, that
have critical potential impacts on environmental justice as discussed earlier are absent in the
mandatory consultation list under the SEA. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop
criteria for evaluating environmental injustice and relevant enforcement mechanisms in SEA.
It is important to stress that if the projects are expected to produce excessive environmental
impacts injustice without feasible mitigation measures, no-action should be considered as an
alternative.
Access to Environmental Information
Access to information is the first and basic step to meaningful participation in the decision
making process. In order to improve the right to information access, we suggest three policy
suggestions. First, it is necessary to build some kind of GIS-based database that provides
information about distribution of risk facilities with socio-economic data. Ministry of
Environment operates environmental information database but it is not comprehensible
enough. Second, information access and consultation in the EIA process needs to be
improved. Information should be provided as early as the decision proves for siting risk
facilities. Draft EIA is supposed to be provided publicly before public hearing but it is way
after the decision of siting already made. The way in which information is provided should be
easy to access with diverse medium. In particular, local residents may find difficulties using
internet, so more acquainted and customized methods should be considered. Third, in order
for more robust risk management, strategy for local capacity building can be effective. For
example, local government, university and community organizations can form a network to
build, share and manage environmental information. With this local activism, broadened and
meaningful public participation in the decision making process will be possible. Fourth,
currently, environmental information can be requested on the basis of general administrative
information request right in civil law. However, the right for environmental information needs
to be more actively ensured as an environmental right because environmental information is
likely to be more critical and urgent than other administrative information.
Beyond consultation toward deliberation and empowerment
Public consultation is important but it is not sufficient condition for environmental justice.
Without deliberation and substantive power to influence the decision, public participation is
likely to end up with a number of meetings and hearings. In particular, as environmental
problems are becoming more complex and uncertain—known as ‘wicked’ problems,
traditional rational planning model based on experts knowledge has lost its ground. Therefore,
governance in planning has to be more participatory, collaborative and communicative.

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Currently, public participation is largely regarded as unnecessary and irrelevant in
government planning. As people being unrecognized and alienated, it is not surprising to see
such intense social conflicts in almost every government development project. Furthermore,
the decision made in such exclusive way is highly likely to favor particular interests, business
or some political interests for example. In order to address the lack of meaningful
participation, investment in actions to foster local capacity including building a network with
local environmental organizations, creating educational programs, monitoring local
hazardous facilities and environmental justice practices is necessary.
4.3 Corrective Justice
Korea has experienced a number of major environmental accidents during the rapid
industrialization: phenol pollution in Nakdong River (1991), Sea Prince Oil spill (1995), and
Taean oil spill (2007), Hydorofluroic acid leakage in Gumi (2012). Although there were
many attempts to enact a law that can enforce liability and compensation, it has not
materialized for some reasons. With continuous advocacy for environmental liability law
from the civil society and academic communities, a council was formed in Lee government,
which was composed of diverse stakeholders and could make a draft after two years of
operation. Finally, “Act on Liability for Environmental Damage and Relief Thereof” was
enacted in 2015 and came into effect in 2016.
This law has three important provisions in it. First, it adopts principle of strict liability, which
means that the polluter is liable for the damage without fault. Second, causal relationship is
presumed when there is considerable probability, which is reflection of precautionary
principle. These two provisions are to require greater liability of the potential polluters and to
lessen the burden of proof for the environmental victims. Third, it also adopts relief by the
government for the environmental accidents of which the source of environmental damages is
unclear.
It is too early to evaluate the environmental liability law at this point. Still, there are some
problems and issues that have to be addressed in order for the law work effectively. First, the
environmental damages for which the polluters are liable in this law are confined to damages
from the installation and operation of hazardous facilities. As a result, the victims affected by
toxic chemicals from consumer products (i.e., Oxy accidents happened recently taking more
than 200 hundreds lives in Korea) are not protected under this law. Second, although the law
adopts principle of burden shift to polluters, victims still need to somehow prove their
damages to claim compensation. But it turns out to be very difficult for the victims to acquire

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such information to prove. For example, government agency requested information by the
victims absurdly often calls for some kind of documents to prove their damages. Although the
law grants victims the right to request information, victim only can receive or read the
information, which means if liable entity refuses to provide needed information, then the
victim cannot even read on site. Third, there are concerns about whether government relief
mechanism works properly. At present, government sets aside only 5 billion won
(approximately, $4.5 million) for relief for the unidentified environmental damages. It is
future challenge to increase this fund to provide a meaningful assistance for the victims. It is
also necessary to establish independent institution for evaluation and community action to file
a legal claim should be allowed.
References
Cho, Myungrae, 2012. Environmental justice in the developmental state in search for a
Korean theory of environmental justice (Korean). Environmental Law Research, 35(3),
3-29.
Scholsberg, David. 2013. Theorising environmental justice: the expanding sphere of a
discourse. Environmental Politics, 22(1), 37-55.
Hong Cheol, Kim. 2015. A case study on environmental injustice in non-urban planned
management area and its solutions: focused on environmental and health damages in
Gimpo Geomuldari and Chowonjiri (Korean). Public interest and Human Rights, 15,
365-395.
Yu, Jung-Min. 2011. Nuclear power in South Korea after Fukushima. Presented at “Energy
policy in Japan: Before and after Fukushima” hosted by Friedrich-Ebert Foundation
(FES) Tokyo Office and Rikkyo University Institute of Economics on November 26,
2011.