Final arguments from the defence and prosecution were heard
in mid-July, and the world court is now considering its judgment. At issue is
Japan’s right to conduct its seasonal “scientific” whaling program in Antarctic
waters. But the case has involved arguments about how to define science itself.
The legal challenge to Japan has been brought to the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague by Australia, which has asked
the Netherlands-based court to find that Japan’s whaling program is illegal
because it is actually commercial whaling — not scientific research that is
permissable under the 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling declared by the International
Whaling Commission (IWC), which went into effect in the 1985/86 coastal and
pelagic hunting seasons.