THE decision by the International Court of Justice to end Japan's annual whale slaughter in the Southern Ocean is a victory on many fronts.
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It is firstly a victory for commonsense. For Japan to claim that it needed to kill 850 minke whales and, in its new research claim, include fin and humpback whales in the name of science defied any form of logic.
It was also a victory for diplomacy and direct action. The Australian government, led mainly by former Labor MPs Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett, pursued Japan in a four- year legal stoush.
Much of this was behind closed doors while the direct action of conservation groups, like Sea Shepherd, was the public relations arm of the struggle.
Japan took 853 whales in 2005, but anti-whaling ships whittled the catch down to 170 in 2010 and just 113 last year.
While whaling has been part of Japanese culture, this has never traditionally extended to the Southern Ocean and the whale sanctuaries. Japan is more likely to continue whaling in its more traditional Northern Pacific waters, not covered by this ruling.
As a committed international citizen it would seem unlikely that Japan would withdraw from the International Whaling Convention and continue the slaughter as a renegade state.
As a proud country where not losing face is paramount, Japan will take this decision hard. However, it can hide behind the ICJ decision rather than giving in to the anti- whaling fraternity.
Japan also has bigger issues at hand. In the next few weeks a free trade agreement with Australia will be advanced as Australia looks to similar free trade arrangements with China and South Korea.
Japan wants to be a good international corporate citizen and a major player in this new super-Asia economy, so its moves in coming months will be interesting.
There is no doubt that a similar legal challenge will be made to its whaling operations in the northern hemisphere, but that will also drag Russia and several other countries into the legal action, which will conceivably drag on for decades.