LAWYER SAYS S. KOREA HAS RIGHT TO BAN US BEEF IMPORTS.

SEOUL, April 2 Asia Pulse - South Korea need not import bone-in beef even if the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) classifies the United States as a "controlled risk" country, a progressive legal expert said Sunday.

Song Gi-ho, a lawyer for the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, claimed the World Trade Organization (WTO) recognizes the autonomy of each member to implement import inspection measures that it considers necessary for the health of its citizens.

"Under the WTO agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary issues, the OIE cannot force its member countries to conform to its recommendations," the expert told reporters in Seoul.

The lawyer representing a special committee within the progressive legal group stressed speculation about South Korea being obliged to change its import rules to allow bone-in beef because the OIE recommends it as a distortion of the facts.

Song's remarks made at a Seoul hotel where last minute negotiations are underway to seal a free trade agreement (FTA), highlights a key sticking point in the talks that began in February 2006.

Washington is insisting that Seoul provide concrete assurances that it will open its market to American bone-in beef, like ribs, as part of the broader FTA deal. Bone-in beef had accounted for more than half of all U.S. beef exports to South Korea before late 2003 when Seoul imposed a beef import ...