Establishment of a System for Settling Conflicts Regarding National Projects

In response to increasing social resistance on national projects, which has been recently sparked by construction plan of a tunnel into Mt. Cheonseong for high-speed trains and the Saemangeum reclamation project, the government will soon establish a mechanism for adjusting conflicts.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination prepared a bill for “Acting on conflict adjustments of public organizations” yesterday. According to this bill, a committee in charge of adjusting conflicts will be established, and analysis on possible conflicts will be carried out by public organizations in order to preempt social resistance from occurring when projects are already under way.

The government is scheduled to officially inform this initiative to the nation today. After the National Assembly passes this bill and various opinions from related sectors are taken into account until May, the bill will become effective from next January.

Specifically, according to this act, the presidents of public organizations can carry out analysis on possible conflicts and establish a committee for adjustments if the projects are likely to trigger serious conflicts in society and in people’s lives.

The bill also suggests several ways to bring about consent: opening meetings for agreement, adopting jury system, and collecting public opinions. These methods are expected to derive from the active participation by citizens.

“Once this system takes place, the number of conflicts between public organizations and nations will be remarkably reduced because they can easily reach agreements through this system,” said a source from the Office for Government Policy Coordination.

taewon_ha@donga.com