South Korea's promise to the US to hold "additional working-level discussions" on the South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) made during the G-20 summit in Canada has indicated that the expansion of US beef imports appears likely to become a topic of serious discussion again.

In particular, the strong chance of permitting imports of beef from cattle aged over 30 months, currently prohibited based on negotiations between trade authorities from both countries, has sparked concerns that this might invalidate the citizen health rights established through the 2008 candlelight vigil demonstrations.

Citizen opposition to the poorly conducted beef negotiations early in the Lee Myung-bak administration produced two sets of safeguards for health sovereignty. The first was the US Quality System Assessment (QSA) Programme. This programme is an autonomous regulation by which US meat exporters agreed to only export to South Korea beef from cattle aged under 30 months, with all material presenting a risk for mad cow disease removed.

Initially, the Lee administration had intended to allow all beef imports without any age restrictions prior to the South Korea-US summit held in April 2008. However, when met with widespread resistance through the candlelight vigil demonstrations, it hurried into negotiations with the US once again and made the decision in June of that year not to import beef from cattle aged over 30 months according to QSA.

There was no evidence that domestic consumer trust has recovered enough to import US beef, said Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon. However, the question of how to apply this provision will inevitably become a topic of heated debate if the US Congress continues calling for the lowering the beef age restrictions as a precondition for ratifying the KORUS FTA.

Observers say the Act on the Prevention of Livestock Epidemics, amended by agreement between ruling and opposition parties in the wake of the candlelight vigil demonstrations, will likely be sacrificed in renewed KORUS FTA discussions. This amendment, which passed the National Assembly in August 2008, specified that beef from cattle aged over 30 months from countries where mad cow disease had occurred could only be imported five years after the occurrence.

It also enabled temporary import suspension measures, should additional mad cow disease cases occur in the exporting country, and specified that the issue would be subject to National Assembly review at the time of resuming the suspended imports. These clauses stand in direct conflict with the KORUS FTA provisions regarding sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) and trade dispute settlement procedures.