LONDON: The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) today welcomed the UN’s International
Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling against Japan’s whaling in the Antarctic.
Australia
took Japan to the ICJ in 2010, alleging it was intentionally taking
advantage of a loophole in the 1986 commercial whaling ban by claiming
it was killing the whales
for scientific research. The Court ruled overwhelmingly in favour of
Australia.
Clare
Perry, head of EIA’s Cetaceans Campaign, today said: “This is an
historic decision which lays to rest, once and for all, the grim
travesty of Japan’s so-called ‘scientific’
whaling and exposes it to the world as the blatant falsehood it clearly
is.
“For a
long time it has been evident that ‘science’ has been abused at a
breath-taking scale to justify Japan’s continued commercial hunting of
protected whales and despite
a heavily subsidised and ever-dwindling market for whale meat in Japan.
“With
this ruling, Japan must clearly cease its whaling activities in the
Antarctic. Next, the world needs to focus its attention on Japan’s
whaling in the North Pacific,
where it continues to issue permits to kill up to 500 whales annually
in hunts using the same ‘scientific’ clause that has now been condemned
beyond dispute by the international court.”
