Japan told to halt whaling immediately

[nahadef]

It's only in the Antarctic. We'll see what happens in the north.

Japan told to halt Antarctic whaling by international court | Environment | The Guardian

The International Court of Justice has ordered a temporary halt to Japan's annual slaughter of whales in the southern ocean after concluding that the hunts are not, as Japan claims, conducted for scientific research.

The UN court's decision, by a 12-4 majority among a panel of judges, casts serious doubt over the long-term future of the jewel in the crown of Japan's controversial whaling programme.

It also marks a dramatic victory for the Australian government, whose four-year campaign to ban the hunts rested on whether it could convince the court that Japan was using scientific research as a cover for commercial whaling.

In its 2010 application to the court, Australia accused Japan of failing to "observe in good faith the zero catch limit in relation to the killing of whales".

Under the International Whaling Commission's 1986 ban on commercial whaling, Japan was permitted to kill a certain number of whales every year for what it called scientific research.

I don't have ethical issues about eating whales. I defer to scientists on the impact of whaling and the degree to which whales are endangered (though it's pretty obvious the damage that removing the top of the food chain causes).

I do take issue with the dishonesty the Japanese whaling has acted with. As well, many Japanese support whaling as a traditional industry (you know, like the traditional exploding harpoon). So I am happy with this result.

 

[thomas]

I have tried whale burger in Hakodate (there's a chain called "Lucky Pierrot") and whale sashimi in Chiba just to understand why some people consider it a delicacy. However, apart from being served as school lunch up to the 80s and 90s, very few of the Japanese I know have a predilection for whale. Watching CNN this morning, one had to get the impression that the whole nation was lusting after nothing but.

The ICJ ruling has to be applauded, as it will effectively end the hypocrisy surrounding Japan's "scientific whale hunt". Where can we follow up on the results of those studies? In local supermarkets? Fortunately, the court also disregarded the ridiculous argument of whale hunting being a Japanese tradition, as if limited coastal hunting in shallops could be compared to modern industrial methods using explosive harpoons, etc. No more excuses.

 

[Dotanbatan]

Very pleased with the decision. Japan does not need large scale commercial whaling as it once did. They should scale it back to just the few coastal whaling communities and retrain the fisherman who work on the factory ship they now use.

If a catastrophe happens in the future and the government is struggling to feed the nation they can easily start hunting again.

I actually used to get more angry with the Greenpeace adventure holiday crews who used to chase the Japanese whalers around..... The hypocrisy they show in focussing so much attention, money and manpower on the Whales is dreadful. They would sail past huge ships leaving Australia that contained TENS OF THOUSANDS of sheep and cattle being held in horrific conditions ... The fate that awaited these poor animals in Indonesia and the Middle East is a cruel barbaric death.
If they are true animal lovers they should get their priorities right !!