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Kim Jung-ho in charge of the lawsuit
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Tomes were stolen from the royal library in 1866
A Korean lawyer who practices in France intends file a lawsuit on February 9 calling for the books French forces stole from the Joseon court’s royal library, Oegyujanggak, on Ganghwa Island in 1866. Kim Jung-ho, an attorney with the French law firm Alerion in Paris, said February 5 the suit is "significant for claiming what is ours in the nongovernmental context, as well." Until now, calls for the books to be returned have come from the Republic of Korea government. He said his case will "exclude political, economic, and diplomatic considerations" and be based "entirely on objective truth and law." The suit itself, he said, would be submitted by mail. In 1866, French warships invaded Ganghwa Island, located an hour west of Seoul, on the pretext that the Joseon Dynasty persecuted Catholics in Korea. When they withdrew one month later, they looted a royal library in the island and took with them 345 books that had been stowed there. The idea for the lawsuit came from the MBC program "Exclamation Mark" (!Neukkimpyo), on which civic groups, politicians, and academics solicited Kim to accept the case.Kim sent the French culture minister a written request that the books be returned in October of last year, as French law reportedly stipulates that to file a lawsuit asking the government to return something, you must first submit a formal request to the ministry in charge. He said he would go forward with the lawsuit, as the culture ministry had rejected his request last month. He noted that the suit will likely take two to three years, and that it will not be an easy fight because there is no precedent in France where cultural artifacts and properties have been returned to their countries of origin. Specifically, the documentation Kim submitted in filing the suit calls for the culture minister’s decision to be reversed and that the books be returned "to the people of the Republic of Korea." He intends to prove legally erroneous the French government’s position that the books from Korea’s royal library are the property of the French state and therefore cannot be handed over. Last year, Korea and France began working-level discussions on the "digitalization" and exhibition in Korea of the books, but with France insisting on a three-month exhibition and Korea insisting that they be put on permanent display in Korea there has been little substantial progress. Meanwhile, the Korean government’s official position is that it is going to continue to call for full ownership of the books from Oegyujanggak.
