산업기술의 해외유출행위에 대한 간첩죄 처벌 타당성 연구

초록

Economic security emerged as a strong element of national security. Nations around the world are exerting their efforts to collect economic intelligence to serve their national interest while making added efforts to uncover industrial espionage and arrest industrial spies in defensive aspect. Cases in point are the enactment of “Economic Espionage Act(1996)” of the U.S. and the “Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology(2006)”of Korea. Korea is trying to punish industrial spying on the same level as espionage that poses national security threat by revising Criminal Code. It is necessary to review whether the move to toughen the punishment of industrial spying from “up to 15 years in prison and/or up to 1.5 billion won in fine” to “minimum seven years of imprisonment, life imprisonment or death penalty” is appropriate. Advanced nations regulate industrial spying with a special act on economy although they have applied espionage act not to “enemy states” but to “foreign countries” in the first place. Likewise, preventing industrial spying by applying espionage act through the revision of criminal code poses a risk of undermining the autonomy of industry sector by excessive influence of state power. Furthermore, the penalty of minimum imprisonment of seven years, life imprisonment or death penalty with the application of espionage act under the criminal code is an legal application by stretching of the law, posing a risk of dampening healthy economic activities. Therefore, revising and applying relevant economic laws such as aforementioned ‘Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology(2006)’ is thought to be desirable to achieve the goal of protecting industrial technologies.

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