KEI Contributor

Ambassador Taeho LEE is a Senior Advisor in the International Trade Group of Lee&Ko, a prestigious Korean law firm. He has expertise in the international trade law and negotiations, both in bilateral and multilateral contexts, based on his 40-year long public service devoted mostly to the area of international economic diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea. During his career, he participated, and later on, led Korean delegations, in a number of trade negotiations that were critical milestones in Korea’s trajectory towards an open economy, including the negotiations under U.S. Super-301 exercise in the 1980s, conclusion of the Uruguay Round and launch of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the 1990s and Korea’s simultaneous pursuit of various free trade agreements (FTAs) in the 2000s and the 2010s.

In December 2022, he completed his government service as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland. During his tenure, he served as Chair of the WTO Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, Chair of the Working Party on the Accession of Uzbekistan to the WTO, and bureau member of the Council of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Prior to this last overseas position as career diplomat, he had worked during the period from 2015 to 2020 as senior official in various positions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidential Office, which include the Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs and Senior Official to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the Assistant to the President for Trade and the 2nd Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also served as Korean Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco from 2012 to 2015.

He worked in a number of Korean overseas missions, which include the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., United States; the Korean Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic; the Korean Permanent Mission in Geneva, Switzerland; the Korean Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh; and the Korean Delegation to the OECD in Paris, France. He also worked for the head (Executive Secretary) of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand as his cabinet staff member.

Ambassador Lee was born on 4 February 1960. He graduated from the Seoul National University with the major on economics and obtained a master’s degree (MSFS, Master of Science in Foreign Service) at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., United States.