Tokyo says international court of justice has no authority to decide what is or isn't science

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

The Japanese government told the UN's top judicial body it was a court of law, not a "medieval inquisition", as proceedings wrapped up in the whaling dispute between Australia and Japan.

Japan used the final day of the three-week hearing to argue the international court of justice (ICJ) did not have the authority to decide what was or wasn't science.

Canberra wants the 16-judge panel to ban Japan's annual hunt on the basis it is not "for purposes of scientific research" as allowed under article eight of the 1946 whaling convention.

Australia argues the Southern Ocean JARPA program is actually a commercial operation.

But Japan insists lethal research is both lawful and necessary.

The deputy foreign affairs minister, Koji Tsuruoka, on Tuesday said Tokyo was seeking "scientific information on the basis of which Japan might be able to ask for the moratorium [on commercial whaling] to be lifted".

"This court is a court of law not a court of scientific truth," Tsuruoka said in The Hague.

Lawyer Alain Pellet, who teaches international economic law at the University Paris Ouest, made a similar point on Tuesday.

"The court ... has the greatest possible authority to settle the legal disputes which it is seized of," he said through a translator.

"But it cannot decide between opposing scientific assessments."

Pellet said Australia was promoting "an elitist, metaphysical and sectarian view of science" whereas Japan was conducting "applied science".

"It is not up to us as legal persons to determine the validity on the merits of one or the other scientific view. We are not a medieval inquisition."

Australia has argued Japan's research is not science but rather "a heap of body parts taken from a large number of dead whales".

JARPA lacked defined and achievable objectives, appropriate methods, peer review and unnecessarily killed the stock being studied, the Australian government has told the court.

But Tsuruoka on Tuesday said the ICJ hearing had allowed Japan to finally show the world the truth about its whale research.

"We can thank Australia for this," he said.

The Australian attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, last week claimed Tokyo had resorted to "untrue and offensive" statements during The Hague hearing.

But Japan itself had reason to be offended by Australia's "factual misrepresentations and ... misleading use of selective references and quotes", Tsuruoka said.

Japan claims it does not want to quit the International Whaling Commission.

But the deputy foreign minister on Tuesday concluded by asking what would happen "when one morning suddenly you find your state bound by the policy of the majority and the only way out is to leave".

After the hearing, government spokesman Noriyuki Shikata told AAP that Japan was content with its "powerful case".

Dreyfus last week told the court that the fact Tokyo had resorted to emotive rhetoric spoke "volumes for the weakness of the Japanese case".

The attorney general said later on Tuesday that the timing of a ruling was in the court's hands.

"But we are hopeful it will deliver its decision before the start of the next whaling season [in the Australian summer]," Dreyfus said in a statement.

"As good international citizens Australia and Japan have both confirmed they will abide by the court's decision."