My husband failed the written exam at Yongin and he was told that he could get an international license. Anyone know if that's true? I thought you had to be in your home country to get an intl license. He's had residency here for a year and a valid license from back home.
As others have mentioned above, the authorities issuing International Driving Permits in the US and in the UK will mail them to people living overseas. If whoever issues IDPs in Peru would do that, then that would be his best bet. Alternatively, could he get it sent to a local address (of family/friend etc) in Peru and have that person forward it to him? If there really is no other option but applying for the IDP in person in Peru then I'm afraid he's stuck with either going back to Peru or just getting the Korean licence.
If he was able to get that Peruvian IDP, remember that he could not legally drive on it here given that he's been resident in Korea more than a year.
So why would anyone recommend him getting an IDP?
Well, first and foremost, just like some immigration officers here will give you wrong answers because they simply don't know what the current and correct rules are, or don't realise that they've changed, likewise some police officers and even driving licence office staff don't know their own department's rules either. So the suggestion could well have been made by someone who didn't realise the illegality of what they were suggesting.
I think the above is probably the answer in your husband's case, but another reason someone might suggest him getting an IDP is this - whilst he'd be breaking the law, he'd nevertheless be doing it in a way that he'd have a better chance of getting away with. If you're stopped by the police and have no licence whatsoever, you're usually going to be in fairly serious trouble. If you're stopped and have an IDP, you might get away with pleading ignorance about the 1 year residence rule and a promise to get your Korean licence ASAP. You'd also likely be seen by the officer as less of a rulebreaker than the driver with no licence at all, or perhaps "just a stupid foreigner who didn't know the rules".
I stress that the long term solution for your husband is NOT to get an IDP and use only that to drive here. He does needs to get the Korean licence to drive legally. Above I'm just trying to explain why the suggestion re the IDP may have been made to him, not recommending it as what he should do.
Good luck to him.
