Environmental campaigners in Australia have mounted a fresh attempt to prevent Japan from killing hundreds of whales in the Antarctic this winter, as officials in Tokyo indicated they would ignore an international ban on the country’s “scientific” expeditions imposed last year.



The Australian branch of Humane Society International claims that Kyodo Senpaku, the Japanese firm that conducts the controversial hunts, is in contempt of court after ignoring a 2008 federal court injunction not to slaughter the animals in a whale sanctuary declared by the Australian government.

Japan, which does not recognise the sanctuary, has not sent a whaling fleet to the region since March last year when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered an immediate halt to the hunts after concluding that they were not, as Japan had claimed, conducted for scientific research.

Japan initially said it would abide by the ruling in the Hague. In April it submitted a revised whaling plan under which 333 minke whales would be killed each year between 2015 and 2027, about one-third the haul it previously targeted.

But experts at the IWC said the new program offered no scientific justification for the slaughter.

In a special declaration, however, the Japanese government recently told the UN that the ICJ’s jurisdiction “does not apply to ... any dispute arising out of, concerning, or relating to research on, or conservation, management or exploitation of, living resources of the sea”.

HSI Australia, whose request for Japan to be held in contempt will be heard in the federal court on 18 November, said it hoped a guilty verdict in the Australian whale sanctuary case would prompt authorities to take action if Japan goes ahead with this season’s hunt.

The fleet usually leaves the south-western port of Shimonoseki in December and returns from the southern ocean in April the following year.

“A guilty verdict would carry the political weight needed to embolden our own government to act,” Michael Kennedy, campaign director at HIS Australia, told the Guardian.

“If the hunt goes ahead, we would expect our government to consider legal, trade and other options against Japan. The policy of the current government is the same as its predecessor – that whaling must end – but the issue is the degree to which it is prepared to put that into action.”

The Australian government said it was examining its legal options after Japan’s decision to snub the ICJ ruling.

“Australia has successfully brought action in the International Court of Justice to stop Japan’s whaling program,” the environment minister, Greg Hunt, said earlier this month. “Japan has previously said it would abide by the ruling. We are taking legal advice on the implications of Japan’s actions.

“We are disappointed by Japan’s decision and we hope that Japan does not undertake so-called ‘scientific’ whaling this [southern] summer in the Southern Ocean.”

Under the IWC’s 1986 ban on commercial whaling, Japan was permitted to kill a certain number of whales every year for what it called scientific research.

