Japan Whaling Ban History

Australia sought an order from the International Court of Justice to stop the Japanese whale hunt in a case launched by the Rudd government in 2010.

The case began as tortuous diplomatic negotiations for Japan to phase out its Antarctic hunt broke down in the International Whaling Commission.

Japanese whaling ship rams the Bob Barker Bob

Other anti-whaling nations, including the United States, warned Australia against going to the court to fight the hunt which kills hundreds of whales each summer.

Then oppostion leader Tony Abbott also rejected the legal bid to end whaling, despite his then environment spokesman Greg Hunt urging the government to submit court documents.

He said while the Coalition would like Japan to stop whaling, ''we don't want to needlessly antagonise our most important trading partner, a fellow democracy, an ally''.

Washington's IWC Commissioner, Monica Medina, said that it was an uncertain gamble on whales' lives. "This is a 'bet-the-whales' case," Ms Medina said then.

But a series of opinions by legal expert panels gathered by international wildlife conservation groups encouraged the then environment minister, Peter Garrett.

Garrett argued strongly inside the Rudd government for taking on Japan, WikiLeaks documents showed.

When the case came to hearing in the Hague last June, it hinged on the court's view of the IWC convention's clause letting any member nation conduct its own scientific whaling program, despite a global moratorium on commercial whaling.

The Australian government's counsel, Bill Campbell, QC, told the 21 judges they had an important opportunity to decide for the world what did, and did not, constitute scientific activity.

"In short, Japan seeks to cloak its ongoing commercial whaling in the lab coat of science," Mr Campbell said.

"It simply is not science."

Japan currently issues its fleet with a scientific permit for a quota of up to 935 minke whales, 50 fin whales and 50 humpbacks, with the humpback quota currently "suspended".

Then attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said the case was not about an Australian "civilising mission" against Japan.

"This case is about one country's failure to comply with its legal obligations not to conduct commercial whaling," Mr Dreyfus said.