Mission & Justice

3/3/10

Japan will push for a resumption of commercial whaling, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu said. “To gain the right to resume commercial whaling, what and how much can we give?” he told reporters in Tokyo today before the closed-door talks of an International Whaling Commission in Florida. “We will continue our patient negotiations.” In 1986, the IWC slapped a moratorium on commercial whaling, but Japan uses a loophole that allows lethal “scientific research” for its annual Antarctic hunts, while Norway and Iceland defy the ban entirely. The three nations have since killed more than 30,000 whales.

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23/2/10

The New Zealand government says taking legal action against Japanese whaling could tie up the issue for years in the courts. New Zealand Prime Minister John Keys and Foreign Minister Murray McCully said they supported a diplomatic solution over Australia’s threat to take Japan to the International Court of Justice. ”Diplomacy gets you a quick solution, going head-to-head means this thing is tied up for ages in the ICJ. It could take years,” Mr McCully said. Mr McCully’s spokesman said the New Zealand government had seen the proposal Australia will soon put to the International Whaling Commission, but the November deadline for legal action ”hasn’t been discussed”.

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Peter Alford and Matthew Franklin; 20/2/10

 Kevin Rudd has vowed to take Japan to the International Court of Justice if it doesn’t agree by November to stop Antarctic whaling, but a behind-closed-doors deal could blow a big hole in his case before then. A proposed compromise in the International Whaling Commission that allowed Japan to continue so-called scientific whaling, on a more restricted basis, could wreck Australia’s claim that the practice is illegal under international law. The Prime Minister yesterday demanded Japan reduce its Antarctic research quota to zero, from this summer’s maximum 985 whales. “If we don’t get that as a diplomatic agreement, let me tell you, we’ll be going to the International Court of Justice,” Mr Rudd said.

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17/2/10

Bravo. Except that now the Japanese have made what appears to be a citizen’s arrest of him. I can imagine the Japanese captain sitting in his captain’s chair, stroking a cat, while feeding it minced whale liver, and saying in his best Bond villain voice, “So Mr Bethune, the tables it seems have been turned”. This may not be true; Bethune might simply be waiting while the Japanese crew have a whip round for the $3,370,000. Predictably Bethune’s cohorts are now whining to all and sundry that the Japanese are holding him against his will and that the New Zealand government is not doing enough to help. Perhaps John Key should send the activists an email with the definition of “irony” attached?
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Cathy Alexander & Andrew Darby; 9/1/10

The Rudd Government won’t guarantee international legal action against Japanese whaling, despite toughening its anti-whaling rhetoric since Wednesday’s collision in the Southern Ocean. Since the collision between Sea Shepherd vessel the Ady Gil and a Japanese whaling ship, there have been calls for the Government to live up to its pre-election promise to take Japan to an international court over its whaling practices. Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia was pushing the anti-whaling case ”with all of our force”. ”We continue to make very clear our view about whaling, which is that it has got to cease,” she said.

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