[JURIST] In defiance of an International Whaling Commission [official website] non-binding vote to impose strict limits on “scientific whaling,” Japan on Thursday announced plans to proceed with a new round of culls scheduled for next year. The whale conservation organization voted at a meeting to require all scientific whaling programs be put before a committee for guidance. The vote would have extended the moratorium on Japan’s scientific whaling that was announced following an International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website] ruling [JURIST report] earlier this year. However, Japanese officials claimed a different interpretation of the ICJ ruling and announced that they will continue with their plans of scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean.

The ICJ ruled in March that Japan cannot continue its annual whale hunt, finding that it is not being carried out for the scientific purposes the Japanese government had claimed. This was decided after a complaint was filed [JURIST report] in June 2010, when the Australian government sought an injunction against Japan’s “scientific whaling” in the Southern Ocean. The complaint alleged that Japan had continued to pursue large-scale whaling under Japanese Whale Research Program under Special Permit in the Antarctic, and had thus breached its “good faith” obligation to limit the killing of whales for commercial purposes to zero. Australia filed a complaint with the ICJ [JURIST report] against Japan for its whaling practices in May 2011. In November 2012 New Zealand announced [JURIST report] that it would support Australia in its battle against Japanese whaling practices. Commercial whaling has been banned by the International Whaling Commission since 1986. In June 2013 the ICJ began public hearings on the ongoing legal dispute.