Australia to face Japan over whaling in UN court

 

The UN's International Court of Justice has set dates for public hearings on Australia's challenge against Japan's whaling programme in Antarctica. The hearings will start in June in The Hague, in the Netherlands, the court said in a statement on Thursday.

Australia took legal action against Japan over whaling in 2010. There has been a ban on commercial whaling for 25 years, but Japan catches about 1,000 whales each year for what it calls research. But critics say it is just commercial whaling in another guise.

Australia is requesting the UN court to halt a Japanese whale research programme, which includes hunting in Antarctica using a special permit. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments from representatives of both countries from 26 June to 16 July.

New Zealand, supporting Australia, is also expected to make submissions to the court. "Australia will now have its day in court to establish, once and for all, that Japan's whaling hunt is not for scientific purposes and is against international law,"  Attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, said. "Australia wants this slaughter to end."

Japan for its part said it would argue that its whaling activity was legal. "Japan will defend its whale hunt as it is within the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling rules, which is the founding document of the IWC [International Whaling Commission]," a Japanese official told the AFP news agency.

Below is an incident, which ocurred between Australian activists and Japanese whalers last month and helped lead to the above appeal to the UN's International Court of Justice.

Sea Shepherd activists clash with Japanese whalers

 

 Activists are blasted with water cannons or hoses by angry Japanese whalers

 

   Good Shepherd activists take a dousing in Frigid Antarctic waters

 

Japan's whaling fleet has clashed with anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, which was attempting to disrupt a hunt in the Southern Ocean, say the activists. Sea Shepherd said a Japanese ship deliberately rammed three of its boats and threw concussion grenades at them.

Japan's Fisheries Agency blamed Sea Shepherd for the incident. Japan hunts whales each year as part of what it says is a scientific research programme - its fleet has frequently clashed with activists who follow it.

The Fisheries Agency said the activists had ignored warnings from the Japanese vessels and hit the Nisshin Maru a number of times. It accused Sea Shepherd of carrying out a "dangerous act that threatened the safety of our research fleet and lives of its crew".

Bob Brown, director of Sea Shepherd, said Wednesday's clashes had been the worst since 2010, when the group's flagship Ady Gil trimaran was badly damaged and sank. He said the crew of Sea Shepherd's Bob Barker had been trying to prevent the 8000-tonne Nisshin Maru from refuelling - from the South Korean-owned Sun Laurel tanker - when it was "repeatedly rammed" by the Japanese ship.

He said the Nisshin Maru had fired water cannon at the Sea Shepherd vessels and that its armed escort had "lobbed concussion grenades onto the decks" of the Australian-flagged ships.

The research sign painted on a piece of canvas is said to be a cover for commercial whale slaughter.

A statement on Sea Shepherd's Facebook page said its Steve Irwin and Sam Simon vessels were also rammed, but that it was the Bob Barker which had suffered the most damage, at one point being sandwiched between the whaling ship and the Sun Laurel. The Bob Barker issued a distress call after it lost power and began taking on water, but the crew were able to regain control. No injuries were reported.

Sea Shepherd said it was now escorting the Sun Laurel, as its lifeboats were damaged in the incident.
The director of Sea Shepherd Australia, Jeff Hansen, said the Nisshin Maru had "committed the maritime equivalent of a hit and run accident. They have rammed the Sun Laurel, putting them in perilous danger, and simply abandoned them".

Sea Shepherd says the incident happened inside Australian waters and inside the international Antarctic Whaling Sanctuary. "This is grand piracy, a complete breaching on a number of fronts of international and Australian domestic law," said Mr Brown, who is also a former Australian Greens senator.

He called on Australia to despatch naval vessels "not just to film the slaughter of the whales by the Antarctic fleet but to restore international law". Australia's Environment Minister Tony Burke said he was aware of the reports and was seeking more information.
"The government condemns so-called scientific whaling in all waters and we urge everyone in the ocean to observe safety at sea,'' he said in a statement.

Australia is taking legal action against Japan over whaling. There has been an international ban on commercial whaling for 25 years, but Japan continues to catch hundreds of whales each year.

Tokyo says the whales are part of a scientific research programme, but the activists and international critics say it is a cover-up for commercial whaling . When will they realize they are contributing to the extinction of our planet, not merely the whales...one species at a time.