Chairman and Secretariat
Chairman
Seung Wha Chang
Chairman
Seung Wha Chang is the Chairman of KCAB INTERNATIONAL and Professor of Seoul National University (SNU) School of Law.
In mid-2000s, Prof. Chang took the lead in founding the Korean international arbitration community.
He was the founding Chairman of the Korean Council for International Arbitration (KOCIA)
and chaired the drafting committee for the original KCAB International Arbitration Rules and also drafted the KCAB Code of Ethics for Arbitrators.
At the same time, he played an active role to promote international arbitration in Asia,
while serving as the 3rd President of the Asia-Pacific Regional Arbitration Group (APRAG).
Since late 1990s, Prof. Chang has sat as an adjudicator/arbitrator for international dispute settlement tribunals nearly one hundred times.
He has served as an arbitrator (chairman or co-arbitrator) for various arbitral institutions,
including the ICC, LCIA, SIAC, HKIAC, VIAC, JCAA and KCAB. He also served as a Member of the ICC International Court of Arbitration.
Besides commercial arbitration, Prof. Chang has been recognized as a leading Asian adjudicator for States-to-States economic dispute settlement.
After serving as one of the most frequently appointed panelists/arbitrators for the WTO dispute settlement, in 2012,
he was appointed as a Member (Judge) of the WTO Appellate Body. After returning from Geneva, Prof. Chang also served for the Korean government as the Chairman of the Korea Trade Commission.
In 2022, he was appointed, for the first time in history, as an appellate review arbitrator for WTO dispute settlement.
In earlier days of his legal career, Prof. Chang practiced at Covington & Burling in Washington D.C., and served as a judge for Seoul District Court.
He is a former Dean of SNU School of Law. Prof. Chang has served for the Board of Directors of POSCO (as Chairman), LG and Hyundai Motor Co.
Prof. Chang holds law degrees from SNU (LL.B.) and Harvard Law School (LL.M. & S.J.D.). He has taught international arbitration,
investment and trade law courses as a tenured professor at SNU and, as a Visiting Professor, at various renowned law schools including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, Duke, Georgetown, UCLA, National University of Singapore, Hong Kong University, and Geneva University.
In 2007, Harvard Law School granted him an endowed visiting professorial chair title, Nomura Visiting Professor of International Financial Systems.
Prof. Chang is also Editor-in-Chief for Korean Arbitration Review, and an Advisory Board Member for the Journal of International Dispute Settlement (Oxford) and formerly the Journal of International Economic Law (Oxford).
Secretary-General
Pui-Ki Emmanuelle Ta
Secretary-General
Pui-Ki Emmanuelle Ta is the Secretary-General of KCAB International. She is responsible for overseeing KCAB International’s operations, including case management and business development.
Prior to joining KCAB International, Pui-Ki worked as an independent arbitration practitioner.
She has over 20 years of expertise as an international arbitration counsel across various jurisdictions, with strategic development experience, having previously served in leadership roles at prominent arbitral institutions. This includes 15 years at the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), working at both the Paris headquarters and the Hong Kong Asia Office. Having served as a deputy counsel at ICC Paris, she later moved to Hong Kong to serve first as a founding member and then as counsel of ICC’s first overseas office leading the case management team there. During her tenure at the ICC, she supervised thousands of international arbitration cases across a wide variety of jurisdictions and economic sectors, primarily involving parties from Asia, Oceania and the Middle East.
After the ICC, she took on the role of Chief Executive Officer and Secretary General of eBRAM International Online Dispute Resolution Centre. There, she played a key role in advancing the use of technology in arbitration and mediation, ensuring efficient and effective resolution of disputes.
She is qualified to practice at the Paris bar and speaks English, French, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Director
Sangki Kam
Director (International Arbitration Team / International Cooperation Team)
Sangki Kam is the director of International Arbitration Team and International Cooperation Team of KCAB INTERNATIONAL. Since joining KCAB in 2008, he has performed multiple tasks such as promotion & education of arbitration, overall planning and management of KCAB, managing arbitration cases, and operating Los Angeles office.
Mr. Kam holds Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree, both in Law, from Sungkyunkwan University, Korea.
Members
Sangyub Lee
Deputy Director
As an attorney licensed in the State of New York, Sangyub Lee is the Deputy Director in KCAB INTERNATIONAL. Before joining KCAB, he had worked as a journalist and an in-house counsel for the Korea Economic Daily, one of the most influential local newspaper companies. He had a role in trying to keep the public informed of KCAB’s achievements and potential through writing a variety of articles, especially covering international arbitration. Joining KCAB’s International Cooperation team, he is mainly in charge of promotion of KCAB INTERNATIONAL by managing diverse networks of the international arbitration community, also administering arbitration cases in English and Korean as a case manager.
Young Shin Um
Senior Counsel
Young Shin Um is a Senior Counsel at the International Arbitration Team. Young Shin worked as a Senior Deputy Director at the International Dispute Settlement Division in the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Korea, where she managed investor-state disputes and represented the Korean government in ICSID Rules Reform Project and in UNCITRAL Working Group III. Prior to joining the government in 2020, Young Shin practiced international arbitration in major Korean law firms.
Young Shin holds LL.B. and J.D. from Seoul National University (LL.B., 2007, and J.D., 2012), LL.M. from New York University (LL.M. in International Legal Studies, 2008 / LL.M. in International Business Regulation, Litigation and Arbitration, 2019), and is S.J.D. candidate at Seoul National University. Young Shin is licensed to practice law in Korea and in New York State.