Japanese officials this week received the official notice that Australia is bringing the Asian nation to the International Court of Justice over its whaling actions in the Southern Ocean. Tensions have existed between the two countries for many years, with Australia protesting the fact that Japan is hunting in natural reserves off its southern territorial waters. Japan is exploiting a loophole in a 1986 UN moratorium on whaling, and is hunting, killing and processing whale meat for selling. This has been proven extensively by tracking the meat, as well as by two Greenpeace activists, who are now under trial in the country for doing the right thing.
Peter Garrett, the Environment Protection Minister of Australia, has been taking increasingly harsher stances against Japan over the past few months, and both countries have refused a deal proposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The UN body was set up to ensure that whales are protected worldwide, but it failed its job miserably, as evidenced by the actions of Japan, Norway and Iceland. These three nations have been defying the international community for 24 years, since the moratorium was first adopted. Shortly afterwards, Japan set up the so-called Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) as a front for its operations. The organization has been plagued by suspicions ever since.
Top government spokesmen in Japan said that the country would not divulge its plan of counteracting the Australian lawsuit to the press. The discussions will take place in The Hague, where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is based. Australia is looking to ban Japan's access to the Southern Ocean, where the Asian nation has been hunting both endangered and vulnerable whale species. Environmental groups such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and Greenpeace have over the past few years taken a stance against the Japanese whaling fleet, harassing the vessels as they tried to catch their annual quota. For the 2009-2010 season, SSCS activists managed to reduce the Japanese catch to half of the planned one.
Under the IWC proposal, Japan and other whaling nations would reduce their quotas significantly over the next few years. But other nations would have none of it. These three countries have already killed more than 33,000 whales over 24 years, and the international community is fed up with their defiance. The results of the trial are sure to take a few years to be publicized, legal experts say. The ICJ is not exactly famous for working incredibly fast, but undoubtedly the judges will see where the justice lies.
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