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South Korea, the United States and Emergency Powers During the Korean Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Su-kyoung Hwang
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This essay is a comparative legal study of the use by the United States and South Korea of state of emergency powers before and during the Korean War. Beginning with the violent suppression of the Cheju Uprising in 1948, a succession of states of emergency was proclaimed in South Korea and the United States throughout the Korean conflict (1948-1953). The essay examines the context in which these emergency laws were conceived and their relationship to state-sponsored mass violence against the civilian population.

Keywords

Korean warstate of emergencyCheju UprisingSyngman RheeHarry Truman
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 5 , January 2014 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014

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