14 DAY TRIAL // On March 31, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which happens to be the primary judicial branch of the United Nations, delivered its verdict on the legality of Japan's whaling program in the Southern Ocean.
As reported at that time, the United Nations court said that such hunts were a violation of the International Whaling Convention, and that evidence indicated that, contrary to the country's claims, they were not being carried out in the name of science.
Hence, the International Court of Justice ordered Japan to stop issuing permits for whale hunts in the Antarctic. Much to the delight of conservationists, especially members and supporters of Sea Shepherd, who have long taken action against whaling activities in the Southern Ocean, Japan promised to abide by the ruling.
However, it would appear that the United Nation's court verdict against the country's whaling program might not be enough to make Japan whale friendly, and prevent future run-ins between the Japanese whaling fleet and conservationists looking to protect marine mammals.
According to Mongabay, this is because, although the International Court of Justice has banned whale hunts in the Antarctic, nothing has yet been said about tracking down and slaughtering marine mammals swimming in the North Pacific.
The same source details that, since the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, Japan has reported annual catches of 600 – 1300 marine mammals for vessels operating in the North Pacific and in the Antarctic. The latter region might now be off-limits, but there is no reason why the country should no longer hunt whales in the former.
“What we would like to see as a next step would be countries in the northern hemisphere follow up with a case against Japan’s North Pacific hunt. This takes hundreds of whales – minke, sei, sperm and Bryde’s whales – and all the same issues apply to this fake science program that applied to Japan’s Antarctic whaling,” Clare Perry with the Environmental Investigation Agency told the publication in a recent interview.
Besides, it might happen that, since what the International Court of Justice first and foremost objected to was that the country was hunting too many whales for carrying out research activities alone, Japan will continue with its whaling program in the Southern Ocean, except that it will rethink its quotas and target fewer marine mammals.
As Clare Perry put it, “There is nothing to stop them devising a new ‘scientific’ whaling program which seeks to address some of the concerns raised in the ICJ case. This is clearly a possibility, but on the other hand one of the greatest concerns was the scale of the hunt and the fact that the research could be carried out using non-lethal methods, so it’s hard to imagine how Japan could address those concerns to anyone’s satisfaction – almost by definition they would have to take fewer whales.”
The good news is that, as reported just yesterday, green group Sea Shepherd has not yet thrown in the towel, and is ready and willing to once again stalk Japanese whaling vessels should they once again go looking for marine mammals to kill and butcher.