Asian Legal Review

Three prominent South Korean writers and artists who have been accused of sex abuse will have their works and almost all mentions of their names removed from school textbooks, the government said Thursday, as the country’s nascent #MeToo campaign spreads.
A growing number of women have spoken out about abuses they suffered at the hands of powerful figures in multiple fields, making headlines in a country that remains socially patriarchal despite economic and technological advances.
Those…

South Korea will investigate allegations that ousted president Park Geun-hye planned to send military troops to quash the candlelit protests that culminated in her impeachment last year, the defence ministry said Thursday.
Activist group the Centre for Military Human Rights Korea (CMHRK), citing multiple leaks, said top military leaders had studied plans to crack down on demonstrators calling for Park’s resignation over a corruption scandal.
South Korea was ruled by military dictators for…

ANALYSIS: A landlord which withholds its consent to a lease assignment will not necessarily be doing so unreasonably where it has multiple reasons for doing so, and only one of those reasons is itself unreasonable.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday sanctions on North Korea will not be eased for the sake of a summit with Pyongyang, as China urged both sides to “seize the current opportunity” to promote the denuclearisation of the peninsula.
In the first meeting of its kind, South Korean officials who met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday said he expressed his willingness to denuclearise the Korean peninsula if his country’s security is assured.
Next month…

Gambia has apologised to Thailand after its foreign minister said the Asian country was a haven for sex tourists, sparking a strongly worded protest from Bangkok.
Hamat Bah said on state television in January that Gambia, a sunny beach destination favoured by Western tourists especially from Scandinavia, was losing out to the nearby archipelago nation of Cabo Verde after gaining a reputation as a sex haven.
“The fact is that this country’s image has been battered heavily … I…

ANALYSIS: Banks cannot make assumptions about the precise steps they need to take to notify regulators about their cloud arrangements. There are high regulatory and commercial costs for banks that do so and get it wrong.

South Korean prosecutors on Tuesday summoned conservative former president Lee Myung-bak for questioning as a criminal suspect in a bribery scandal, the country’s latest former head of state to be investigated.
“We need to investigate former president Lee to find the truth in a transparent and effective manner,” Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified Seoul prosecutor as saying.
Allegations of corruption involving the 76-year-old’s relatives and aides during his 2008-…

Australia and East Timor will on Tuesday sign a treaty at the United Nations to end a dispute over their maritime border and potentially unlock billions of dollars in revenue from offshore oil and gas.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will preside over the signing ceremony to be attended by Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Deputy Prime Minister Agio Pereira of East Timor, Asia’s youngest nation which joined the United Nations in 2002.
The treaty could provide a major…

Planning rules in England will be updated to make it quicker and easier for developers to build new homes, the UK government has said.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is skipping a regional summit in Australia this month, his spokesman said Monday, as he faces international censure for Manila’s deadly drug war.
Duterte’s decision to snub the meeting comes after he said he would not cooperate with United Nations investigators looking into alleged extrajudicial killings during the narcotics crackdown, which has left thousands dead.
His spokesman Harry Roque confirmed that the outspoken leader would not join…