Australia is pressing ahead with its International Court case.
The Federal Government will initiate legal action against Japan early next week over its "scientific" whaling in the Southern Ocean.
The legal application will be lodged with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Environment Minister Peter Garrett announced this morning.
In a statement Mr Garrett, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the decision had not been taken lightly and had come after the government tried to reach a compromise with the Japanese Government through the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and bilateral talks.
The ministers' statement says the legal action is about one dispute with Japan in an otherwise "comprehensive strategic, security and economic partnership".
"Both Australia and Japan have agreed that, whatever our differences on whaling, this issue should not be allowed to jeopardise the strength and the growth of our bilateral relationship," the statement said.
Mr Garrett said: "We want to see an end to whales being killed in the name of science in the Southern Ocean."
They - as in the anti-waling lobby - are saying this fulfills an ALP election promise and so this is a good thing. It's questionable politics at best. The SMH analysis on the move is here.
By committing to a Hague case — but only if significant progress has not been made in diplomatic efforts — the ALP politically trumped the Howard government on the one environmental cause that almost all Australians support.
But would they really go so far as to upset a country who is a crucial economic and diplomatic partner over a few whales?
Instead of rushing to the lawyers when they first came to power, Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith sensibly attempted to first hammer out a compromise with the Japanese.
For three years Smith and Garrett tried different avenues. They flirted with a small working group within the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which is trying to break the impasse between whaling and anti-whaling nations. They held bilateral meetings with Japanese officials. And they held out hope that the change of government in Japan last year would present new opportunities to cut a deal.
But in the end the compromises on the table from Japan weren't enough. Left with no option Smith informed the Japanese Government last night that papers would be lodged in The Hague early next week.
The timing of the case is not accidental. Next month the IWC will meet in Agadir to discuss a compromise deal put forward by the IWC chair that allows Japan limited commercial whaling rights in the Southern Ocean.
If that deal passes Australia will no longer be able to take Japan to the International Court of Justice. Japan would have a legal right to continue its commercial whaling operations in the Southern Ocean.
Darren Kindleysides, director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, says Australia's case will likely centre around "abuse of rights".
Those "rights" are a loophole in the 1949 Whaling Convention that allows member countries to kill protected whale species for scientific purposes. Australia will allege Japan has been abusing this loophole for commercial gain.
I'm sort of worried by how they're glossing over the clause at the IWC which allows scientific whaling, and calling it a loophole. I'm also worried about the fact that they don't mention that it is agreed at the IWC that any whale taken for research purposes can't just be thrown back into the sea, it has to be sent to the market. So the Australian case that the research whaling is a front for a commercial whaling industry is going to have a hard time proving their case given that the Japanese whaling fleets are abiding IWC rules to the letter.
Australia sure has its work cut out. And oh look, emissions are up.
Anyway... the response in Japan is pretty mature.
「事実なら大変残念だ。調査捕鯨は（国際捕鯨取締条約で）認められており、それに従ってやっていく。日豪関係全体を悪化させたくないが、駄目なものは駄目と主張していきたい」と述べ、６月にモロッコで開かれる国際捕鯨委員会（ＩＷＣ）総会などで反論していく考えを明らかにした。
豪州はＩＷＣで調査捕鯨廃止が認められなければ国際司法裁判所に提訴するとしていたが、事実上それを前倒しした形。その点について赤松農相は「豪州も秋に総選挙があり、労働党政権は厳しい。そういうことも多分、背景にある」との認識を示した。
The minister for Agriculture Hirotaka Akamatsu said they disagree with it, that they'll fight it at the IWC meet and also words to the effects of "look the Labor Party over there have a tough election coming up later this year so they have to do what they have to do."
Here's some differing perspective from New Zealand.
New Zealand says it won't consider joining Australia's international legal action to stop Japanese whaling until diplomatic efforts fail, because going to court is a risky move.
The Australian government announced on Friday that it will initiate action in the International Court of Justice in The Hague next week.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key told reporters that New Zealand would stick to a "diplomatic route" with Japan over the issue.
"The legal opinion we've had is that court action may or may not be successful, but it's certainly far from a sure bet," Mr Key said on Friday.
"The reason we've gone down a diplomatic solution is not because we're afraid of a court case but because the advice we've had is that it's more likely to be successful.
"In the end, if that diplomatic route is unsuccessful then New Zealand will make a decision about whether it's going to join Australia in the international court of justice.
"It doesn't mean we wouldn't join Australia if the diplomatic solution has been extinguished."
Mr Key said the court process could take years and would be a risky move.
"If they go to court and they lose there are real risks here so that is the whole point," he said.
"That's why if we find a diplomatic solution it might be a lot better than a court case that we could lose.
"If we thought a court case was clear cut and easy to win then obviously that might be the fastest way to do that."
It's interesting that New Zealand is taking this position given that it is one of their citizens and not an Australian citizen sitting for trial in Tokyo over the recent Sea Shepherd actions and altercations with the research whaling fleet.
Meanwhile, here's more from the IWC itself.
Monica Medina, the U.S. commissioner to the IWC, told reporters at a briefing that the Obama administration cannot accept the commission's current proposal, which allows the hunting of too many whales. But Washington is willing to continue talks to see if a stronger accord to protect whales can be settled at the IWC meeting in Morocco, she said.
Medina, who's also a principal deputy undersecretary in the Commerce Department, said: "The IWC is fundamentally broken and must be fixed." Negotiators recognize that whaling continues despite a moratorium.
"The idea would be to cap that whaling and to get it under the IWC's control so that it can be monitored," she said.
The chairman of the IWC, Cristian Maquieira, said at the briefing a successful deal next month could bring international whaling under IWC control -- something that's not happening now.
"The negotiations will be very, very complicated and very, I suspect, intense, but I do look forward to a positive outcome," Maquieira said. "I'm optimistic that we will arrive at some understanding."
He was careful to note that the IWC proposal is only meant to spur negotiations -- not to be a final agreement. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed," Maquieira said.
I think they're being coy. Whaling by Japan, Norway and Iceland during the last 25 years has always been under IWC control as such. What's really being negotiated is numbers and really, at the end of the day, that's what the commission is supposed to do: broker numbers. If talks at the IWC fail again, I guess the world will be watching the trial in the Hague. Joys of joys.
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