Stanford University

Foreign Policy

Justice or Farce? The Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia

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The UN and the Cambodian government have finally established a “hybrid-style” tribunal in Phnom Penh to begin prosecuting senior leaders from the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that caused the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians more than thirty years ago. This tribunal is widely viewed as one of the most important experiments in transitional justice in a post-conflict society. Prof. Hall will show, however, that the hybrid structure mixing international and local lawyers, judges, and staff is deeply flawed. Cambodia’s legal system is notoriously corrupt, inefficient, and politically controlled. Predictably, the UN-sponsored tribunal has been plagued by accusations of corruption, opacity, distrust, and woeful human resource management. Against this backdrop, the international lawyers and judges at the tribunal continue their up-hill battle to forge a venue that meets minimum international legal standards.

John A. Hall specializes in international law and human rights. His controversial 21 September 2007 op ed in the Wall Street Journal (“Yet Another U.N. Scandal”) helped focus international attention on corruption and mismanagement at the Khmer Rouge tribunal. In addition to writing widely on Cambodia, he has worked for Legal Aid of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and the Public Interest Law Center in the Philippines. He holds a doctorate in Modern History from Oxford University, graduated from Stanford Law School in 2000, and before going to law school was a tenured professor of history.

John Ciorciari is Senior Legal Advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a leading NGO dedicated to accountability for the abuses of the Khmer Rouge regime. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a PhD from Oxford University.

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John Hall Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Global Trade & Development Speaker Chapman University School of Law
John Ciorciari Discussant - 2007-2008 Shorenstein Fellow Commentator
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Southeast Asia Program

Christian von Luebke

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 726-0685 (650) 723-6530
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Visiting Scholar, 2009-12
CvL_APARC_Photo_-_Oct_2010_2.jpg MA, PhD

Christian von Luebke is a political economist with particular interest in democracy, governance, and development in Southeast Asia. He is currently working on a research project that gauges institutional and structural effects on political agency in post-Suharto Indonesia and the post-Marcos Philippines. During his German Research Foundation fellowship at Stanford he seeks to finalize a book manuscript on Indonesian governance and democracy and teach a course on contemporary Southeast Asian politics.

Before coming to Stanford, Dr. von Luebke was a research fellow at the Center of Global Political Economy at Waseda (Tokyo), the Institute for Developing Economies (Chiba), and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Jakarta). He received a JSPS postdoctoral scholarship from the Japan Science Council and a PhD scholarship from the Australian National University.

Between 2001 and 2006, he worked as technical advisor in various parts of rural Indonesia - for both GTZ and the World Bank. In 2007, he joined an international research team at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) analyzing the effects of public-private action on investment and growth.

Dr. von Luebke completed his Ph.D. in 2008 in Political Science at the Crawford School of Economics and Government, the Australian National University. He also holds a Masters in Economics and a B.A. in Business and Political Science from Muenster University.

His research on contemporary Indonesian politics, democratic governance, rural investment, and leadership has been published in the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Contemporary Southeast Asian Affairs, Asian Economic Journal, and ISEAS. He regularly contributes political analyses on Southeast Asia to Oxford Analytica.

Should Japan Revise its Postwar Constitution? Historical Origins and Security Options for the Future

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Professor Mito will offer a critical analysis of the constitutional revision debate in contemporary Japan and its implications for Japan's foreign relations. He argues that the justification for constitutional revision is based on political myth rather than historical reality. It is strongly felt that a militarized Japan will not enhance its independence or its international prestige. Some fear that a new Japan will end up as part of the American defense mechanism supporting US hegemony and its global strategy. Mito argues that any constitutional revision and the resultant remilitarization can affect the balance of power in the international system beyond its national borders. His major objective is to critically assess the argument for constitutional revision and the implications of the current revision debate.

Takamichi Tam Mito is professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A graduate of International Christian University (B.A.), he studied also at the Universities of Keele, Toronto, London, and Tsukuba (M.I.A. & Ph.D. in Law). Prior to his current appointment, he taught at the Universities of Cambridge, London, and Toronto and at Monash and Kyushu Universities. At Kyushu he was Foundation Professor of International Japanese Studies and Study Abroad Program. He also worked as a manager in the Department of Financial Engineering at Citicorp Investment Bank Ltd in London.

His major publications include: State Power and Multinational Oil Corporations: a Study of Market Intervention in Canada and Japan (Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press, 2001); The Political Economy of the Oil Market: A Comparative Study of Japan and Canada (Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press, in Japanese 2006); Sengo Nihon Seiji to Heiwa Gaiko (Postwar Japanese Politics and Peace Diplomacy) (Kyoto: Horitsubunkasha, 2007). His 2001 publication received an award by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Currently, he is completing six books on Japanese studies in the Asia-Pacific Region as a co-editor and contributor (forthcoming in 2008 and 2009) and also a book length study of the impact of government policy on the industrial growth, structure, and performance of the oil industry in modern Japan as a single author. He is the recipient of many research grants from various prestigious bodies including the governments of Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan.

He has served for many professional and governmental bodies including Japan Agency for International Cooperation as a visiting professor of Japanese studies, Public Policy Studies Association in Japan, as the founding director; and the Japan Association of International Students' Education, as a founding vice president.

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Takamichi Tam Mito Professor, International Political Economy, Department of Japanese Studies Speaker Chinese University of Hong Kong
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John Hagel and Henry Chesbrough deliver keynote addresses at "The Shape of Things to Come" conference

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George Krompacky
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"The Shape of Things to Come," a conference presented by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship on January 17-18, 2008, featured keynotes by John Hagel, co-author of The Only Sustainable Edge and Co-Chairman of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation, and Dr. Henry Chesbrough, Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and author of Open Innovation.

The keynotes bookended Thursday's forum, "New Patterns and Paradigms in Global Innovation Networks," and were a prelude to Friday's academic workshop, "A Global Perspective on Regional Innovation Indicators." Hagel's talk focused on the need for a more explicit taxonomy of innovative collaboration and discussed the "huge need to define pragmatic migration paths"--routes that the average manager and company can take to reach the opportunities that normally are only accessible to cutting-edge companies.

The forum closed with a presentation by Dr. Henry Chesbrough, who provided an overview on the globalization of innovation in the Chinese semiconductor industry, which he sees as split into a "globally oriented, globally competitive" industry segment and a domestically-oriented segment with "backward technologies" and lacking access to capital. The question, he explained, is how China will shift its resources, now entrenched in the latter, to the former, competitive segment.

Chesbrough finished with a discussion of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China, looking at flows of knowledge and current IPR challenges; he mentioned some surprising developments--the rise of businesses to "promote the legal exchange of IP" and the growth of a domestic constituency for stronger IPR--and discussed future implications for IPR in China.

In between the keynotes, the forum featured sessions on innovation in internet services in China, the role of venture capital as a network builder, and discussions on two rapidly moving industries: cleantech and thin film transistor LCD displays.

Conference materials, including presentations and audio files, will be made available on the SPRIE website.

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The Future of Democracy in Southeast Asia

This program will bring together some of the world's leading experts on Southeast Asia and democracy to consider critical questions facing the region. Has the American model of democracy become tarnished in Asia, and is the Chinese model of authoritarian capitalism of growing appeal and significance? What are the dimensions and implications of Islamicization for Southeast Asia? What are the prospects for cleaning up notoriously corrupt party politics? Will the military ever be driven out of politics in places like Thailand and the Philippines? Is the American-led "war on terror" helping stabilize politics in the region, or is it exacerbating already serious problems? What do these developments mean for U.S. foreign policy and American influence in Asia?

 

Kishore Mahbubani, one of Asia's leading public intellectuals, is author of the forthcoming The New Asian Hemisphere: the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East; and Can Asians Think? and Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World. Now the dean and professor of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, he served for 33 years as a diplomat for Singapore.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, and the newly-released The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World.

Donald K. Emmerson has written or edited more than a dozen books and monographs on Southeast Asian politics, including the forthcoming Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia and Indonesia Beyond Suharto. His latest publication is titled "Challenging ASEAN" (Jan 2008). He is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he also heads the Southeast Asia Forum.

Douglas Bereuter (moderator) is president of The Asia Foundation. He assumed his current position after 26 years of service in the U.S. Congress, where he was one of that body's leading authorities on Asian affairs and international relations.

Co-sponsored with the Asia Society; Business Executives for National Security; UC Berkeley Center for Southeast Asian Studies; USF Center for the Pacific Rim; and the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this panel discussion.

Julia Morgan Ballroom
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Kishore Mahbubani author and dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Speaker National University of Singapore
Larry Diamond Senior Fellow Speaker the Hoover Institution

Donald K. Emmerson

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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Affiliated Faculty, CDDRL
Affiliated Scholar, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
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At Stanford, in addition to his work for the Southeast Asia Program and his affiliations with CDDRL and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Donald Emmerson has taught courses on Southeast Asia in East Asian Studies, International Policy Studies, and Political Science. He is active as an analyst of current policy issues involving Asia. In 2010 the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars awarded him a two-year Research Associateship given to “top scholars from across the United States” who “have successfully bridged the gap between the academy and policy.”

Emmerson’s research interests include Southeast Asia-China-US relations, the South China Sea, and the future of ASEAN. His publications, authored or edited, span more than a dozen books and monographs and some 200 articles, chapters, and shorter pieces.  Recent writings include The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century (ed., 2020); “‘No Sole Control’ in the South China Sea,” in Asia Policy  (2019); ASEAN @ 50, Southeast Asia @ Risk: What Should Be Done? (ed., 2018); “Singapore and Goliath?,” in Journal of Democracy (2018); “Mapping ASEAN’s Futures,” in Contemporary Southeast Asia (2017); and “ASEAN Between China and America: Is It Time to Try Horsing the Cow?,” in Trans-Regional and –National Studies of Southeast Asia (2017).

Earlier work includes “Sunnylands or Rancho Mirage? ASEAN and the South China Sea,” in YaleGlobal (2016); “The Spectrum of Comparisons: A Discussion,” in Pacific Affairs (2014); “Facts, Minds, and Formats: Scholarship and Political Change in Indonesia” in Indonesian Studies: The State of the Field (2013); “Is Indonesia Rising? It Depends” in Indonesia Rising (2012); “Southeast Asia: Minding the Gap between Democracy and Governance,” in Journal of Democracy (April 2012); “The Problem and Promise of Focality in World Affairs,” in Strategic Review (August 2011); An American Place at an Asian Table? Regionalism and Its Reasons (2011); Asian Regionalism and US Policy: The Case for Creative Adaptation (2010); “The Useful Diversity of ‘Islamism’” and “Islamism: Pros, Cons, and Contexts” in Islamism: Conflicting Perspectives on Political Islam (2009); “Crisis and Consensus: America and ASEAN in a New Global Context” in Refreshing U.S.-Thai Relations (2009); and Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia (edited, 2008).

Prior to moving to Stanford in 1999, Emmerson was a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he won a campus-wide teaching award. That same year he helped monitor voting in Indonesia and East Timor for the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center. In the course of his career, he has taken part in numerous policy-related working groups focused on topics related to Southeast Asia; has testified before House and Senate committees on Asian affairs; and been a regular at gatherings such as the Asia Pacific Roundtable (Kuala Lumpur), the Bali Democracy Forum (Nusa Dua), and the Shangri-La Dialogue (Singapore). Places where he has held various visiting fellowships, including the Institute for Advanced Study and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 



Emmerson has a Ph.D. in political science from Yale and a BA in international affairs from Princeton. He is fluent in Indonesian, was fluent in French, and has lectured and written in both languages. He has lesser competence in Dutch, Javanese, and Russian. A former slam poet in English, he enjoys the spoken word and reads occasionally under a nom de plume with the Not Yet Dead Poets Society in Redwood City, CA. He and his wife Carolyn met in high school in Lebanon. They have two children. He was born in Tokyo, the son of U.S. Foreign Service Officer John K. Emmerson, who wrote the Japanese Thread among other books.

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January 2008 Dispatch - South Korea's New President: An Opportunity for Closer Ties with the United States

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We are pleased to bring you the first dispatch of the new year in our series of Shorenstein APARC Dispatches. This month's piece comes from David Straub, this year's Pantech Fellow. Straub served thirty years in the U.S. Department of State, specializing in Northeast Asian affairs, including as the Department's director of Korean and of Japanese affairs. Since leaving the State Department last year, he has taught U.S.-Korean relations at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Seoul National University's Graduate School of International Studies. At Shorenstein APARC, he is writing a book on U.S.-South Korean relations.

In December 2007, for the first time ever, South Koreans, anxious about the economy, elected a businessman as their president. Pro-growth conservative Lee Myung-bak won a resounding victory, with 49 percent of the vote, over left-center candidate Chung Dong-young, who won only 26 percent. Lee's margin would have been even greater had it not been for the late entry into the race by another conservative, Lee Hoi-chang, who finished third with 15 percent.

Korean voters had become tired of ten years of rule by the left-center, and they saw incumbent President Roh Moo-hyun as confrontational and ineffective. By contrast, Lee, a former Hyundai Engineering and Construction CEO, has a reputation for being a pragmatic, can-do leader. As mayor of Seoul (2002-2006), he beautified the city and reformed its mass transit system.

Lee is scheduled to be inaugurated on February 25 for a single five-year term, but he faces two early challenges. First, just before the election, the left-center camp passed a bill establishing a special prosecutor to investigate allegations that Lee had been involved in business fraud and other corruption. The special prosecutor is supposed to announce his findings before the inauguration. A regular prosecutor earlier found the charges to be unfounded, and most observers think that the special prosecutor will not turn up significant new information.

Second, President-elect Lee must counter centrifugal forces in the conservative party ahead of parliamentary elections on April 5. Lee Hoi-chang's defection has already split the conservative camp, and now President-elect Lee and former conservative party leader Park Geun-hye (daughter of the late President Park Chung Hee) are feuding over how much say each should have in choosing candidates for the parliamentary election.

If President-elect Lee is cleared by the special prosecutor and if he successfully manages relations with Park, Lee's party will likely win a very large majority in the parliamentary election, offering him the opportunity to be a strong and effective executive.

As president, Lee will face two long-term challenges. First, as Lee has promised Korean voters, he must strengthen the economy. While the Korean economy has been growing at a rate of about 5 percent in recent years, the average Korean has felt hard-pressed by large increases in housing and education costs. Lee plans to focus on deregulation and attracting foreign investment. He has, however, already been forced to scale back his promise of 7 percent annual growth to 6 percent at least for his first year in office.

Second, although North Korea was not a major issue in the election campaign, due to the apparent progress in Six-Party talks to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program, many experts are skeptical that North Korea will fully abandon its nuclear ambitions. Lee supports engagement of North Korea and continued humanitarian aid, but he has said he will not provide major economic aid to North Korea until it ends its nuclear weapons program. This marks a significant departure from the policy of his predecessors Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung. A renewal of tensions with North Korea could threaten South Korean economic growth and Lee's popularity.

Lee strongly supports South Korea's alliance with the United States. He may seek talks with the United States to adjust or delay implementation of agreements reached in recent years to reduce the United States' role in South Korea's defense. Lee also supports early ratification of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the largest U.S. free trade agreement since NAFTA. (The U.S. Congress has not yet approved the U.S.-Korea FTA.)

Many experts believe that the near coincidence of Lee's election and the inauguration of a new U.S. administration in January 2009 offers a major opportunity to strengthen U.S.-South Korean relations. Shorenstein APARC and the New York-based Korea Society recently announced the formation of a study group of senior former U.S. officials and experts to issue a report and recommendations on how the next U.S. administration can work with President Lee. The study group will travel to Seoul in early February for meetings with President-elect Lee and his economic, foreign policy, and security advisors.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the election of Lee was that Koreans did not think it remarkable. They simply took it for granted that the election would be free, fair, and peaceful. Yet it has only been twenty years since South Koreans literally forced a military-backed government to allow them to vote democratically for their chief executive. In those two decades, there have been five presidential elections, with Lee's victory making the second full-fledged transfer of power between political camps. Moreover, this election was conducted at very low cost, using public funds; companies were not "squeezed" for campaign contributions as in the past. South Korea has demonstrated itself to be, along with Australia and New Zealand, the most democratic country in East Asia and a model of political development for the entire international community.

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Top U.S. Foreign Policy Experts to Examine U.S.-South Korean Alliance

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Heather Ahn
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New York and Stanford, CA., Jan. 10, 2008 -- With South Koreans having elected a new president last month and Americans going to the polls in November to choose a new leader, Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the New York-based Korea Society today announced the formation of a non-partisan group of distinguished American former senior officials and experts to study ways to strengthen the alliance between the two countries.

The New Beginnings' study group will gather at the end of the month at Stanford University to discuss and analyze the implications of the Korean election for alliance relations. The group will then proceed to Seoul in early February for meetings with South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-bak and his top aides, as well as other leading figures in Korean business, academic, media and policy circles. Based on these meetings, the group will prepare a report in March on their findings and recommendations to present to American policymakers, including those from the leading U.S. presidential campaigns.

Korea Society President Evans J.R. Revere and Stanford University Professor Gi-Wook Shin said group members believe that U.S.-South Korean relations are critically important to the United States' role in East Asia and that the inauguration of new administrations in both the U.S. and South Korea offers a unique opportunity to create "new beginnings" in the alliance relationship.

They also noted that the two presidential elections coincide with a critical phase in multinational talks to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programs and that close U.S.-South Korean cooperation is essential to successful diplomacy in dealing with North Korea.

Shin and Revere said that the Bush and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, after initial policy differences over North Korea especially, had recently significantly improved their cooperation, but that the two countries could do much more to strengthen bilateral relations.

Shin and Revere said they regarded the study project as a continuing collaborative effort by their two institutions. After issuing the report in March, they intend to continue to meet with U.S. and South Korean policymakers and other leaders. They plan to update the report and recommendations after the U.S. presidential election.

Study group members are:

  • Michael H. Armacost, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; currently the Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University
  • Stephen W. Bosworth, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, and a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea
  • Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a former State Department Northeast Asia intelligence chief
  • Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies and D.S. Song Professor at Georgetown University, and former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council and U.S. deputy head of delegation for the Six Party Talks in the George W. Bush administration
  • Thomas C. Hubbard, Kissinger McLarty Associates, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea
  • Don Oberdorfer, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and former longtime Washington Post foreign correspondent
  • Charles L. Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C., and former U.S. ambassador and special envoy for negotiations with North Korea
  • Evans J.R. Revere, president of the Korea Society, and former principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
  • Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC; the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies; and professor of sociology at Stanford University
  • Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University, and formerly a foreign affairs correspondent and columnist
  • David Straub, Pantech Research Fellow at Stanford's Shorenstein APARC, and a former State Department Korean affairs director
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Decision Factors Affecting Semiconductor Industry Location and the Regional Advantages of Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan

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The objective of this paper is to pinpoint the key determining factors that managers in multinational semiconductor firms use to decide upon a location to expand their business. Interviews were conducted with seventeen executives at eight companies, at both the U.S. and Japanese headquarters. Based on these interviews, the author analyzed the data to determine the strengths and weaknesses of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture, in particular, as a semiconductor investment location. One important research finding is an assessment of these strengths and weaknesses, their importance to foreign executives, and how Kumamoto can capitalize on them in order to attract more business to the region.

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Kyoko Ii

Third Annual Globalization of Services Conference Summary Report

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On December 7 and 8, 2007, the Third Annual Globalization of Services Conference organized by Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney was held at Stanford University. The conference explored the following questions:

  1. The changing geography of system integrators: The incumbent system integrators (SIs) are building up their developing nation service provision capability through acquisitions and internal expansion. The thrust of their expansion is to add capacity quickly. Can they manage it effectively? At a slower pace, the Indian SIs are doing the same in developed and developing nations: adding low cost workforces in developing countries, buying relationships in developed countries. Can they manage it effectively. Will growth rates and margins converge; if not, why not? What are some of the interesting differences between firm strategies?

  2. The changing business models of system integrators: The Indian system integrators appear to be driving a new, metric-based quality model that is driving price compression. Is this strong enough to provide a permanent advantage? IBM and others are responding with a combination of superior technology, client relationships and domain expertise, drawing upon their established strengths while also expanding in India and other low-cost developing countries. Are we witnessing a convergence to a common business model? Is there a European perspective? Is it different and does it make a difference?

  3. Product firms' globalization strategies (separate sessions on established and new firms): The IT product firms have to balance several additional factors that service firms like the SIs do not face when they globalize; among them, intellectual property protection, business development, managing innovation, research team coordination and marketing. How is this working, and what business models are they experimenting with? What are the differences between an established firm versus a startup?

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India Arriving: How This Economic Powerhouse is Redefining Global Business

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India Arriving: How This Economic Powerhouse is Redefining Global Business
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US-Korea Relations: the Ambassadors' Dialogue Program

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About the ambassadors
Ambassador LEE Tae-sik is a career diplomat whose service for his country covers four decades and four continents. After passing the High Diplomatic Service Examination and joining the Foreign Ministry in 1973, Ambassador Lee served in various locations around the globe including Liberia, the Philippines, Austria, Yugoslavia and the EU, among others.

He has also held several senior level positions within the Korean government, including director-general of the International Trade Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and deputy executive director of Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).

In July of 2000 his first ambassadorial posting was as ambassador to Israel, where he served until February of 2002 when he was called back to serve as the deputy minister for Foreign Affairs. In his capacity as the deputy foreign minister, he led Korean delegations in numerous security negotiations and consultations, particularly those addressing North Korea's nuclear issue.

In June of 2003, he became the Korean Ambassador to the Court of St. James (United Kingdom). In January of 2005, he was posted back to Seoul as the vice minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Ambassador Lee became Korea's Ambassador to the United States in October of 2005, presenting his credentials to President Bush in November of 2005. Ambassador Lee had served in the Korean Embassy in the United States before, as a First Secretary from 1981-1984.

Ambassador Lee was born on October 26, 1945 and is a native of the Republic of Korea. He pursued his academic studies in Korea and the United States, graduating from the Department of International Relations at Seoul National University in 1970 and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins in May of 1988. Ambassador Lee is married with three sons.

Alexander Vershbow was sworn in as ambassador to the Republic of Korea on October 14, 2005 and took up his duties on October 17, 2005. He is a career member of the Foreign Service, with rank of career minister, and has extensive experience in East-West relations, non-proliferation and European security affairs.

From July 2001 to July 2005, Ambassador Vershbow served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation. During his tenure, the Ambassador worked to promote U.S.-Russian cooperation in the areas of counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation, and to expand the agenda to encompass new challenges such as HIV/AIDS. He was a consistent advocate for the causes of democracy, human rights and rule of law in Russia, and received the American Bar Association's 2004 Ambassadors Award for these efforts. He also promoted U.S. business interests in Russia, advancing American trade, exports and investment during a period of unprecedented Russian economic growth, while campaigning for the protection of intellectual property rights.

From January 1998 until July 2001, Alexander Vershbow served as the U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). As U.S. Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council, Vershbow was centrally involved in transforming NATO to meet post-Cold War challenges, including the admission of new members and the development of relations with Russia. In June 2001, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell awarded Ambassador Vershbow the State Department's Distinguished Service Award for his work at NATO.

From 1994 to 1997, Alexander Vershbow served as special assistant to the President and senior director for European Affairs at the National Security Council. During this period, he helped shape U.S. policy toward NATO enlargement, the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, and NATO-Russia relations. In October 1997, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen presented him with the first annual Joseph J. Kruzel Award for his contributions to the cause of peace.

Vershbow is a long-time student of Russian Affairs and international relations. He received a B.A. in Russian and East European Studies from Yale College (1974) and a Master's Degree in International Relations and Certificate of the Russian Institute from Columbia University (1976). He has held a series of assignments since joining the Foreign Service in 1977, including postings to the U.S. Embassies in Moscow and London, advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks in Geneva, and deputy U.S. permanent representative to NATO. Ambassador Vershbow was director of the State Department's Office of Soviet Union Affairs during the last years of the USSR (1988-91). In 1990, he was awarded the Anatoly Sharansky Freedom Award by the Union of Councils of Soviet Jews for his work in advancing the cause of Jewish emigration from the USSR.

Ambassador Vershbow was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His wife, Lisa, is a prominent designer of contemporary jewelry. They have two sons.

This program is co-sponsored by the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C.

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Lee Tae-Sik Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States Speaker
Alexander Vershbow Ambassador of the United States to the Republic of Korea Speaker
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