14 DAY TRIAL // Just minutes ago, Greenpeace announced that the International Court of Justice had delivered its verdict on the legality of Japan's habit of hunting whales in the Southern Ocean.
According to the organization, the United Nations court ruled that Japan's whaling program was illegal. Consequently, the country must stop hunting marine mammals in said region.
The International Court of Justice started looking into whether or not Japan was acting in accordance with the law when carrying out whaling campaigns in the Antarctic after Australia complained that Japanese whale hunts in the Southern Ocean were being carried out under false pretenses.
Thus, it was back in 2010 when Australia dragged Japan to court and made a case of how, by pretending to kill marine mammals for scientific purposes, the country was in fact carrying out commercial whaling activities.
This is because meat coming from whales hunted in the Southern Ocean quite often ended up on people's plates. According to Australia, this meant that Japanese whaling campaigns in the Antarctic were a clear violation of 1986 international whaling moratorium.
The International Court of Justice appears to agree with Australia on this issue, hence its saying that Japan must immediately put an end to its whaling program in the Southern Ocean. What the UN court could not understand was why Japan needed to kill hundreds of whales if its end game was research alone.
Greenpeace explains that, although the practice of hunting marine mammals for scientific purposes is yet to be banned on a global scale, today's ruling is reason enough to celebrate. This is because, thanks to the International Court of Justice, Japanese whalers can no longer go hunting in the Southern Ocean.
“While today's ruling did not outlaw the killing of whales for scientific research per se, it categorically stated that Japan's whaling program in the Southern Ocean was not for scientific purposes, and the amount of whales being killed was not justifiable in the name of science,” the organization writes on its website.
“The news confirms what we've been saying all along: this lethal whaling program is not necessary, and is harmful to the health of our oceans. It's high time this industry was consigned to the history books,” Greenpeace adds.
According to the organization, both Australia and Japan have vowed to abide by the UN court's ruling on whale hunting activities in the Antarctic. Thus, Japan has promised to stop issuing permits for whaling in the Southern Ocean, and Australia could not be happier about it.