New Zealand has no viable options under current international law to challenge the legality of Japanese scientific whaling.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand has no viable options under current international law to challenge the legality of Japanese scientific whaling, the nation's representative to the International Whaling Commission said Tuesday.
Calls have been made for New Zealand to use international law to stop Japan's scientific whaling program in the southern oceans, but IWC commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer said the approach would fail.
"The New Zealand government has been studying this issue of the legality of the Japanese action for some time," he told domestic news agency, New Zealand Press Association.
"The conclusion we've come to is it would be extremely hazardous to engage in such a proceeding because we do not think we could win," the constitutional lawyer and former prime minister was quoted saying.
Tensions have been rising in the Southern Ocean as two Greenpeace International ships shadow a Japanese whaling fleet in protest at what the environmental group says is poorly disguised commercial whaling.
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Japan plans to catch 935 minke whales and 10 fin whales during the southern hemisphere summer for what it insists is scientific research.
Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said its research was "perfectly legal" and would help protect and conserve whale stocks for future generations.
Institute director general Hiroshi Hatanaka said the research program was conducted under a special permit issued by the Japanese government based on its right under Article 8 of the international whaling convention.
"Our research is perfectly legal in every aspect referred to by anti-whaling opponents and scientifically necessary to ensure the best decisions can be made for sustainable resource management," he said in a statement.
Data obtained from the research would ensure proper management of whale resources under a future commercial whaling regime, he added.
Palmer said that Article 8 of the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling, which permits scientific whaling, was written in "extraordinarily broad terms."
Japan's whalers had used Article 8 to grant themselves a scientific quota ,and this year had doubled that quota, Palmer said.
This appeared to go against the provisions of the treaty, as New Zealand's scientific advice was that there was no need for scientific whaling which killed whales, he said.
"Article 8, the right to scientific whaling, has to be removed," he added.
Source: Associated Press
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