Korea-GCC FTA and Copyright

In recent years, the proliferation of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has become a global trend. Recent endeavors to pursue FTAs on the part of Korea do not imply a shift of the focus of her foreign economic policies, Korea, as major global trading nation, attaches great importance to the complementary nature of FTAs in promoting global trade liberalization and the multilateral trading system as a whole. Korea and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries held second round of talks over the Free Trade agreement (FTA) in March 2009, Riyadh. Last July, both sides decided to hold additional talks in order to seal the FTA deal by end of 2009. Most GCC countrie did not introduce a copyright code until recently. Historically, their legal system have applied the Islamic Law (Sharia) which does not provide authors of intellectual subjects protection for their literary, musical, dramatic or artistic works. However, the international community represented by organizations concerned with intellectual property rights and commerce such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World trade Organization (WTO) along with some countries interested in copyright protection such as the United States put their weight on GCC countries to establish the means of protection for copyright nationally and internationally. This article outlines copyright issues which will be raised in relation to the Korea-GCC FTA