Japan ends Antarctic whaling hunt

Australia celebrates while Japan expresses disappointment over International Court of Justice order to halt whaling. Paul Chapman reports.

A delicacy in Japan ... Packs of whale meat hang at a whale meat specialty store at Tokyo's Ameyoko shopping district. Source: AP

JAPAN says it is cancelling its annual Antarctic whaling hunt for the first time in more than a quarter of a century in line with a UN court ruling.

A "deeply disappointed" Tokyo earlier this week said it would honour Tuesday's judgment by the United Nations' Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the program was a commercial activity disguised as science. Tokyo, however, did not exclude the possibility of future whaling programs.

AUSTRALIA WINS JAPANESE WHALING CASE IN THE HAGUE

JAPANESE LOSE TASTE FOR WHALE MEAT AS AUSTRALIA WINS CASE

Antarctic whaling cancelled ... Three dead mink whales lie on the deck of the Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru, in the Southern Ocean. Source: AP

Today, officials said the next Antarctic hunt, which would have started in late 2014, had been scrapped, just weeks after the most recent one finished.

"We have decided to cancel research whaling (in the Antarctic) for the fiscal year starting in April because of the recent ruling," a fisheries agency official said.

But he added that "we plan to go ahead with research whaling in other areas as scheduled", including the northern Pacific. Japan also has a coastal whaling program that is not covered by a commercial whaling ban.

Australia, backed by New Zealand, hauled Japan before the ICJ in 2010 in a bid to end the annual Southern Ocean hunt.

WILL JAPAN RESUME ANTARTIC WHALING? COMMENT BELOW

Victorious ... (From left) Members of the Australian delegation, Justin Gleeson, Bill Campbell and Philippe Sands before the verdict in the case against Japanese whaling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Source: AFP

Tokyo has used a legal loophole in the 1986 ban on commercial whaling that allowed it to continue slaughtering the mammals, ostensibly so it could gather scientific data.

However, it has never made a secret of the fact that the whale meat from these hunts can end up on dining tables.

Public consumption of whale meat in Japan has steadily and significantly fallen in recent years, and there is little support for whaling itself.

But aggressive anti-whaling campaigns hardened sentiment among the Japanese public, who came to see the issue as an attack on differing cultural values.

"I think everyone knew all along that research was a fig leaf to disguise commercial whaling," said Jeffrey Kingston, an Asian studies professor at Temple University in Tokyo.

"But the Japanese government erred in thinking that this loophole ... provided a legal basis for continued whaling as long as it asserted that it was for research. It did not anticipate that the research argument would be exposed as a sham." Japan had argued that its JARPA II research program was aimed at studying the viability of whale hunting, but the ICJ found it had failed to examine ways of doing the research without killing whales, or at least while killing fewer of them.

"Whale meat is an important source of food, and the government's position to use it based on scientific facts has not changed," Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference on Tuesday in response to the judgment.

Cancelled Antarctic whaling ... Japanese whaling fleet's harpoon vessel Yushin Maru No. 2 with a minke whale in the Southern Ocean. Source: AFP

Yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his government would abide by the court ruling, but added that the ruling was "a pity and I am deeply disappointed".

Some legal experts have suggested Japan might simply redesign its whaling program to skirt the ICJ ruling, but Australia and New Zealand are expected to keep up the diplomatic pressure to ensure Tokyo abides by the spirit of the pronouncement.

However, Shohei Yonemoto, visiting professor on global environment and bioethics at the University of Tokyo, said the ruling would provide Tokyo with a convenient way of getting out of a money-losing and controversial business.

"Japan should not miss this opportunity to use the ruling as an excuse to fully review its whaling program without losing its face," he said.

Hisayoshi Mitsuda, professor of environmental sociology at Bukkyo University in Kyoto, added: "Financially, whaling doesn't pay — it's a decaying industry." Three countries — Japan, Norway and Iceland — use objections or exceptions to continue whaling, a practice observers say claims more than 1000 of the marine mammals, some endangered, each year. But Japan is the only country to conduct whaling under a scientific permits category.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Japan ends Antarctic whaling hunt

Dengan url

https://budayacreatip.blogspot.com/2014/04/japan-ends-antarctic-whaling-hunt.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Japan ends Antarctic whaling hunt

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Japan ends Antarctic whaling hunt

sebagai sumbernya