Do we like Moon Jae-in?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A rights-lawyer career and real diplomacy, held back by his 2017 debate remarks, no equality law, and a bribery trial he denies.
Moon was born in 1953 to parents who had fled North Korea, and grew up poor. He was arrested at a student protest against the Park Chung-hee government, and his activism cost him a judge's seat even though he finished near the top of his law class. Instead he co-ran a Busan human rights law firm with Roh Moo-hyun, taking cases for students and low-paid workers.
That path led to the presidency in May 2017. He was dubbed the Gwanghwamun president for planning to leave the Blue House and be more accessible. In 2018 North and South Korean athletes marched together at the PyeongChang Olympics, and Kim Jong-un crossed into the South to meet Moon at Panmunjom. Whatever you think of the results, that was big, risky diplomacy.
In office, he told religious leaders in 2019 that sexual minorities should not be “socially persecuted or discriminated against”. But he stayed publicly silent on a 2020 equality bill, despite having pledged an anti-discrimination law years earlier. Human Rights Watch noted in January 2022 that his government had not passed one. Nice words, no law. I didn't pull a full tally of his climate record, so that part is a gap.
The legal cloud is the bribery case. Prosecutors indicted him in April 2025, alleging a job at Thai Eastar Jet in 2018 was a bribe linked to the appointment of its effective owner, a former lawmaker, to a government post. Moon denies intervening in the hiring. His lawyers say the pay was for real work, and he has called the case political. No court has ruled, so treat it as alleged.
Away from the courtroom he is still active. In April 2026 he used the anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration to urge Kim Jong Un to sit down with Donald Trump, arguing there was “no alternative to a diplomatic solution”. That is consistent with the engagement policy he ran in office. Where you land on it depends on whether you read talks as hope or as naivety.