Whaling banned in Antarctica. Oh happy day.

Update: Japan has confirmed it will cancel its annual Antarctic whale hunt in line with the International Court of Justice’s ruling on Monday that its whaling programme breached international law.

“We have decided to cancel research whaling (in the Antarctic) for the fiscal year starting in April because of the recent ruling,” a fisheries agency official told AFP.

But he said Japan still plans “to go ahead with research whaling in other areas as scheduled”, including the northern Pacific, the Guardian reports.

The next Antarctic whale hunt would have started in late 2014.

Mamamia previously wrote:

The International Court of Justice — the top United Nations court — has upheld Australia’s bid to ban Japan’s Antarctic whaling program.

The court’s president Peter Tomka said it had concluded the scientific permits granted by Japan for its whaling program were not scientific research as defined under International Whaling Commission rules.

The Netherlands-based court ruled Tokyo should cease its whaling program “with immediate effect”.

In the court, Australia had accused Japan of simply “cloaking commercial whaling in a lab coat of science”, insisting Japan had violated Article 8 of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.

In its judgement today, the majority of the 16-judge court agreed, saying the “special permits granted by Japan are not for purposes of scientific research”.

Despite being a signatory to the 1946 Convention, Japan has been using a legal loophole that allows it to kill whales and sell their meat and byproducts under the guise of “scientific research’’.

The Australian reports:

Despite the decision, which has been hailed as a lifesaver for whale stocks, Jeff Hansen, the director of Sea Shepherd said “we are still preparing to head down regardless of the ICJ decision”.

Each year Japan sets itself a kill target of 850 minke whales and 50 humpback and 50 fin whales for its research — although the numbers of whales actually killed fell just over 100 last year because of aggressive sabotage efforts of Sea Shepherd activists.

In the court’s judgement today Tomka said that, when setting this quota size for taking whales, Japan should have considered the feasibility of non-lethal methods.

He said the nation couldn’t take a larger catch than needed to meet its research objectives.

“There is no evidence that Japan has examined whether it would be feasible to combine a smaller lethal take, in particular of minke whales, and an increase in non-lethal sampling as a means to achieve JARPA II’s research objectives,” Tomka said.

Japan has killed more than 10,000 whales in the Antarctic since 1986.

Officials from Japan have said they will abide by the court’s decision, which is final and without any appeal process.