Back in 2015,... Japan had filed a complaint to the WTO,... arguing against South Korea's ban on its fishery imports from several areas, including nuclear disaster-hit Fukushima.
After losing the first ruling in February of 2018,.... South Korea has won the bulk of its appeal on Thursday.
Our Kim Hye-sung reports.
South Korea has won its appeal at the World Trade Organization over its dispute on import bans on Japanese seafood.
Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, the Korean government slapped a temporary import ban on Japanese food.
It then extended the ban to all fishery products from eight Japanese prefectures around Fukushima in 2013 and enacted additional testing requirements.
In 2015, Tokyo filed a complaint with the WTO against the restrictions.
After siding with Japan in its first ruling in 2018, the WTO said in its final ruling that South Korea’s measures were not overly restrictive and did not unfairly discriminate against Tokyo.
"The government welcomes the WTO's final ruling. Since losing the first ruling, we formed a dispute response team with various related ministries to come up with follow-up measures. We believe the final ruling is a reflection of our efforts. With the WTO ruling, all existing import bans on Japan will stay in place."
In a statement, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said the WTO's ruling was regrettable, and said Tokyo wants negotiations with Seoul to end the restrictions.
Since the import ban in 2011, Japanese seafood imports to South Korea have fallen from over 70-thousand tons to around 20-thousand tons a year.
According to Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, after inspecting 170-thousand agricultural and fishery products last year, 18 percent of its agricultural goods and 7 percent of its fishery goods were found to contain radioactive cesium.
"When it comes to radioactive materials, there's no such thing as safe thresholds. Just a slight exposure to cesium can cause cancer. Cesium from Japanese seafood in the eight prefectures was nine times higher than permissible levels. That's not safe at all."
Around 50 countries across the world, including China, have some sort of ban on Japanese food imports in place since 2011.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.
