Moon Jae-in’s Policy Towards Multilateral Institutions: Continuity and Change in South Korea’s Global Strategy

By Paula Cantero Dieguez, Linde Desmaele, Maximilian Ernst, Tongfi Kim, Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Riccardo Villa

18.12.2019

What drives President Moon Jae-in’s policy towards multilateral institutions? The Moon government has made participation in global governance a cornerstone of its foreign policy. Similarly to its predecessors, the government has been a strong supporter of multilateralism. This is non-negotiable for Seoul.

This report seeks to map out and analyse the Moon government’s policy towards key multilateral institutions operating in the areas of security, economics and sustainable development. It also seeks to explain the key drivers underpinning this policy. As we show, Seoul’s support for an involvement in multilateral institutions is not uniform. The Moon government acts as a leader in some cases, an active participant in others, and a passive by-stander on occasions.

Security, economics and sustainable development are crucial to any country’s foreign policy, especially the first two. The institutions covered in this report therefore include the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), peacekeeping, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime in the area of security; the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and G20, the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision (BCBS) and Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the area of economics; and climate change, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) in the area of sustainable development. Read the full report here.