Legal News

Australia sues Japan over controversial whaling

By (Breaking Legal News)

Japan said Tuesday it would staunchly defend its research hunt that kills hundreds of whales per year, a day after Australia filed an international lawsuit arguing that the cull does not qualify for a scientific exemption to a 1986 ban.

Australia ? Japan's major trading partner ? filed its lawsuit with the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Monday, officials in both countries confirmed, after Canberra announced its intention last week to file suit following years of fruitless diplomatic efforts to end the hunt.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano ? Japan's top government spokesman ? called Australia's action "extremely regrettable." A Japanese Foreign Ministry official in charge of whaling said that Tokyo would defend itself before the international court.

"We cannot accept Australia's argument at all," ministry official Yutaka Aoki said. "We will firmly respond to the lawsuit."

Japan joins Norway and Iceland in hunting whales under exceptions to a 1986 moratorium by the International Whaling Commission. Japan says its hunt falls under an exemption that allows for scientific research, but opponents call Japan's scientific research whaling program a cover for commercial hunts.

Full post as published by Breaking Legal News on June 01, 2010 (boomark / email).