Top UN court rules Japan’s whaling not for scientific ends, revokes permits

AMSTERDAM: Japan’s whaling programme in seas near Antarctica is not for scientific purposes, judges at the UN’s highest court ruled on Monday, agreeing with Australia that Tokyo should revoke permits to catch and kill whales for research purposes.

Australia, which brought the case before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2010, had argued that Japan’s assertion that it was carrying out scientific research was a figleaf to justify what was in fact pure commercial whaling.

“In light of the fact the JARPA II (research programme) has been going on since 2005, and has involved the killing of about 3,600 minke whales, the scientific output to date appears limited,” said presiding judge Peter Tomka of Slovakia.

Australia hauled Japan to the ICJ in an attempt to torpedo whale hunting in the Southern Ocean, a practice Canberra says is a thinly-disguised commercial exploit under a cover of scientific research.

While Norway and Iceland have commercial whaling programmes in spite of a 1986 International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium, Japan insists its programme is scientific, while admitting that the resulting meat ends up on plates back home.

Tokyo is accused of exploiting a legal loophole in the 1986 ban on commercial whaling that allows the practice to collect scientific data.

10,000 ‘slaughtered’

Australia asked the world court to order Japan to stop its JARPA II research programme and revoke “any authorisations, permits or licences” to hunt whales in the region.

Tokyo vowed to vigorously defend the practice which it maintained was for scientific purposes only.

But Canberra said since 1988 Japan has slaughtered more than 10,000 whales under the programme, allegedly putting the Asian nation in breach of international conventions and its obligation to preserve marine mammals and their environment.

In its application before the world court, Australia accused Japan of failing to “observe in good faith the zero catch limit in relation to the killing of whales”.

Japan in April 2013, announced its whaling haul from the Southern Ocean was at a record low because of “unforgivable sabotage” by activists from the environmental group Sea Shepherd