14 DAY TRIAL // On March 18, the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Humane Society International issued a joint report saying that the world's largest online retailer of both whale meat and ivory was a Japanese company named Rakuten.
Sometime after, on March 31, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled that Japan's whaling program in the Antarctic was illegal and ordered the country to stop issuing permits for hunts in the Southern Ocean.
Shortly after the United Nations court issued its verdict, Japanese online retailer Rakuten went public with the news that, as a response to the ban on hunting marine mammals in the Arctic, it was to stop selling whale meat, The Guardian informs.
More precisely, the retailer says that it asked merchants to cancel sales of whale meat products via Rakuten Ichiba (www.rakuten.co.jp), i.e. a subsidiary that the Rakuten Group wholly owns, and that sellers have until the end of April to abide by this demand.
What's interesting is that, despite the fact that the Rakutan Group claims to have taken steps towards putting an end to the sale of whale meat products as a result of the United Nations court's verdict, the ruling did not say anything about whale meat sales in Japan.
On the contrary, selling whale meat is still very much legal in Japan. Besides, as reported just yesterday, the country can still hunt marine mammals in the North Pacific. This is because the only region that the International Court of Justice has made off-limits is the Southern Ocean.
Commenting on the Japanese online retailer's decision to end whale meat sales, conservationist Clare Perry said, “The removal of thousands of ads for whale products is a very welcome step and a clear recognition by Rakuten that selling the meat of endangered and protected whales and dolphins is seriously harmful to both its global reputation and customers’ health.”
Members and supporters of the Environmental Investigation Agency and of the Humane Society International hope that, now that it has taken action against the sale of whale meat, the Rakuten Group will also move to end the ivory trade on Rakuten Ichiba.
“Japan is awash with illegal ivory trade and Rakuten's thousands of ivory ads help fuel the mass slaughter of elephants across Africa. We appeal to Rakuten to help protect elephants by immediately banning all ads for ivory products,” said Allan Thornton, the president of the Environmental Investigation Agency.
As reported back in March, conservationists have recently counted a total of 28,000 advertisements for elephant ivory and over 1,200 for whale products on Rakuten Ichiba. Hence, they argue that the Japanese online retailer is guilty of helping bring already endangered species even close to extinction.