Is It Time To End The Korean War?

What? You thought the Korean War ended fifty years ago? Actually, the Panmunjom Agreement, concluded on June 27, 1953, was merely an armistice agreement. It provided for a cease-fire and created a military demarcation line between North and South Korea. It did not, however, provide any terms for normalizing relations among the participants, which is what a peace treaty normally does.

More than half a century later, however, the President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, and the infamous North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il today signed a Joint Declaration for Advancing Inter-Korean Relations and Peace and Prosperity. You can access a rough translation of the Declaration here. Now, the Joint Declaration does not itself appear to be legally binding; rather, it has all the indicia of a political commitment, for which North Korea does not exactly have the best record of compliance. Still, the text clearly expresses the interest of both sides in commencing a new negotiating effort to conclude a formal peace treaty normalizing their relations. Here’s the most relevant language:

News reports are indicating that the two leaders are inviting China and the United States to join them in working out the terms for a peace treaty. That’s an interesting position, since President Bush already publicly proposed the peace treaty idea last month. The difference may lie in the timing–the United States seems set on formalizing and finishing efforts to walk North Korea back from a nuclear weapons program before the start of any peace negotiations. The Joint Declaration, in contrast, could be read to allow concurrent negotiations on both subjects. If the North and South are both ready for peace talks now, will the United States really hold off until there’s more action on the nuclear side? They might, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. ends up at both negotiating tables even if it would have preferred to devote its diplomatic energies soley to the nuclear front. After all, peace treaties can be complicated instruments that don’t come along every day. Indeed, they appear increasingly rare as the United Nations now frequently brokers the cessation of conflicts in lieu of party-directed peace agreements. And, when they are done, Christine Bell has argued they operate under their own, distinct corpus of law (see her article at 100 AJIL 373 (2006)). Perhaps they’ll need some added expertise at the negotiating table?

Photo Credit: Joint Press Corps