TITLE

A Study on the Public Law Legitimacy of the National Urban Park System in South Korea

JOURNAL

Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine the public law legitimacy of state intervention in the National Urban Park system and to reconsider its legal status within the Korean urban park framework. The current legal structure of urban parks in South Korea contains an inherent institutional imbalance: while the central government designates urban parks as urban planning facilities, the responsibility for their acquisition, development, and management is largely assigned to local governments. This structural mismatch has contributed to the long-standing problem of unimplemented urban parks and the expiration of park designations under the sunset provision. Although the National Urban Park system has recently been introduced as a policy response, its constitutional and legal justification remains insufficiently explored. To address this gap, this study analyzes relevant legislation, decisions of the Constitutional Court of Korea, and comparative legal materials from Germany, focusing on three fundamental questions: Why urban parks? Why should the state intervene? And

why is a National Urban Park system necessary? These questions are examined through the constitutional principles of environmental rights, property rights, and sustainability principles. The findings demonstrate that urban parks constitute essential environmental infrastructure for realizing citizens’ environmental rights and that the issue of long-term unimplemented parks should be understood as a constitutional conflict between the state’s duty to protect environmental rights and the guarantee of private property rights. Furthermore, the study argues that a public law basis for supplementary state intervention and shared responsibility is necessary to address the institutional imbalance between national planning authority and local implementation

obligations. The National Urban Park system can also serve as an effective mechanism for preserving ecological foundations for future generations and operationalizing the principle of sustainability. In conclusion, the National Urban Park system can be interpreted as a public law instrument that reconciles environmental rights, property rights, and sustainability principles while establishing a cooperative framework of responsibility between the central and local governments. By examining the legitimacy of state intervention through a constitutional perspective, this study expands existing discussions on National Urban Parks beyond policy and planning approaches and contributes a public law perspective to landscape architecture scholarship.

KEYWORDS 

Park Sunset System, Environmental Rights, Sustainability Principles, Green Infrastructure, National Responsibility

CITATION

이수현, 서영애, &  최혜영. (2026). 국가도시공원 제도에 대한 공법적 정당성에 관한 연구. Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture, 54(3), 92-105.