Japan Denies Australia’s Anti-Whaling Case At ICJ, Australia Confident Relationship With ‘Good Friend’ Japan Will Continue

Japan has rejected Australia's position on whaling, calling it "mistaken." The Asian country told the International Court of Justice in The Hague that "alarmist" Australia is blinded by its "no-compromise, zero-tolerance" anti-whaling views, which it wants to impose on other nations.

Australia has complained about Japan's whaling practices in the Antarctic at the ICJ, saying that Japan has been practicing commercial whaling, which has been banned in 1986, instead of scientific whaling as it claimed.

Japan continues to catch whales in the Antarctic, where unlimited whaling is allowed for scientific research.

But Australia alleges that Japan's scientific program violates international laws, adding that the smaller country's whaling programme has nothing to do with conserving marine life as it has already killed more than 10,000 whales. Japan's programme is apparently open-ended, not peer-reviewed, and therefore not scientific.

According to the country's first oral argument on June 26, Japan's whaling activities are "dangerous" to the rest of the whale population.

But for Japan, Australia seeks to apply the International Whaling Convention as if it was the anti-whaling convention, and that it bases its arguments on its own policy of absolutely no whale-killing.

"Since 1979 Australia has pursued an express policy of using the IWC, against its stated purpose, to ban all whaling. It has politicised science in order to impose Australian values on Japan in disregard of international law," Payam Akhavan, Japan's representative, told the 16 judges of the ICJ.

Mr Akhavan added that the country complied with the international whaling moratorium despite its 2,000 years of whale hunting tradition. This leaves coastal communities in anguish because they are unable to practice their traditions anymore.

Despite Japan's rejection, Australia is still confident that its relationship with Japan won't be tarnished whatever the outcome of the case will be.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who will travel to The Hague on Friday to face the court, said Australia's relationship with its "good friend Japan" would continue.

"We have an immensely important and longstanding relationship with Japan," he told Sky News. "I'm very confident that it's not going to affect our relationship in any other way."

New Trade Minister Richard Marles added that the countries' free trade agreement negotiations are "entirely separate" from the current case.

"Good friends sort their disputes out in a civilised way and there's no more civilised way of doing that than going through legal process," he told Sky News.

The case will run until mid-July, although the court ruling is not expected for several months.

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