A Study on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters to TRANSNATIONAL THREATS in Northeast Asia

Technological and economic development after the World War II promoted the increase of the free movement of goods, services and people, which led to globalization. Contrary to positive expectations for the globalization, it has brought negative side effects such as globalization of crime and international disorder by illegal subnational actors. The phenomenon of international disorder as a dysfunctional element in the process of globalization is expected to increase more rapidly in the future. One of these threats is transnational crime. Transnational crime refers to crimes related to two or more sov-ereign states, such as the subject, object, act, the benefit, and outcome of a crime. As these transnational crimes increase, closer cooperation with foreign countries is required for prevention, investigation, prosecution, trial and punishment of crime. However, it is questioned whether the traditional system of mutual legal assistance in criminal matters can be played as an effective countermeasure against transnational crimes becoming globalized and widened both quantitatively and qualitatively. Therefore, it is emphasized that the need to reorganize the existing system of mutual legal assistance in criminal matters to be effective. Based on these problems, the purpose of this study is to find ways to build international cooperation on police activities in Northeast Asia for transnational threats, focused on transnational crimes. Due to the various problems inherent in the traditional legal mutual assistance in criminal matters, actual cooperation on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters is not often achieved. Moreover, the new type of mutual legal assistance in criminal matters as bilateral treaties has not been joined in Northeast Asia, and coop-eration through international criminal police organizations may concern about violation in human rights. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss how to prevent and suppress these crimes while promoting free movement of individuals and exchange and cooperation. In this article, one of these problematic situations was discussed the international cooperation plan of police activities and suggested the recommendations for improvement.