Australian Minister Foreign Affairs - possible legal charges if Japan continues Whaling in Sanctuary

[Annces]

The Hon Stephen Smith MP
AUSTRALIAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
19 December 2008

Interview - Sky News Australia, Australian Agenda
Subjects: Japanese whaling

(part of an interview on Australian agenda)
Note: A COMPERE is the person who introduces a show (British)

COMPERE: Foreign Minister, you've just arrived back from Japan. You're back in Perth now but you were over in Japan the last couple of days. You raised the whaling issue with your counterpart over there. But are the Japanese really listening? It looks like they're ignoring every request the Government is making. The whaling fleet has got off to the Southern Ocean again. They're going to not reduce their cull. It looks like they're playing us for mugs.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I made two points to the Japanese. I was in Tokyo with Joel Fitzgibbon, the Defence Minister, for the meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers, the so-called 2+2 meeting, which is a very important strategic and security meeting that we have with Japan. I met both with Prime Minister Aso and also with my Foreign Ministerial counterpart, Foreign Minister Nakasone.

I made two points essentially to them. The first one was that we continue to want through diplomatic measures to have Japan cease whaling in the Great Southern Ocean. I expressed my disappointment that the Japanese whaling fleet had sailed, and I'd also expressed my very strong disappointment that they'd indicated no reduction in this year or this season's cull.

I also made a second point which I think is very important, that we now see the prospect and the potential and the danger of a clash between the Japanese whaling vessels and the protest vessel of the Sea Shepherd, in the Great Southern Ocean where the risk of injury or fatality is high and the prospect of a rescue is very low.

So I've urged, as Peter Garrett, the Environment Minister has, restraint so far as both the Sea Shepherd and the Japanese whaling vessels are concerned because anything untoward occurs it's very, very difficult, if not nearly impossible, to render assistance in the very difficult circumstances we find in the Great Southern Ocean.

COMPERE: The diplomatic approach has failed for years. When do you say enough is enough and take legal action?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, in our case we've been pursuing these measures for 12 months, and it's a trite line but it's also true; we've done more, we believe, in 12 months than the previous Howard Government did in 12 years.

We've made it clear to the Japanese that we want to resolve this through diplomatic measures, both bilateral measures whether it's through the representations I make, whether it's through the representations our special envoy Sandy Holway makes, or whether it's through the multilateral discussions that I had in the International Whaling Commission.

But we've also indicated that if we don't believe we can solve the thing through diplomatic measures then legal action remains a possibility, and that legal action either through the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea or the International Court of Justice is there as a possibility which we continue to hold open as one of our options.

COMPERE: Back in 2005 Kevin Rudd issued a media release in which he said, we cannot afford another year of complacency. This is in 2005. And he says, the Howard Government must act immediately to take Japan to the International Court of Justice.

Now, that was immediately back in July of '05. When is action going to be taken?

STEPHEN SMITH: And during a 12 year period effectively where the Howard Government did nothing.

We've done a range of things which we think are putting pressure on the Japanese. We sent the Oceanic Viking down there last season to get video and photographic evidence which will be available to us to use in an International Court action if we proceed down that path. We've made the strongest representations over the last 12 months from Prime Ministerial level down. We've appointed a special envoy, and we've also taken substantial measures to launch new programs before the International Whaling Commission to seek to encourage the Japanese to their so-called lethal scientific whaling to non-lethal scientific research.

We are putting all the pressure we can on the them and we continue to urge them to cease their program.

But, as I say, we continue to hold open other options if we don't, in our view, become successful in our efforts in those diplomatic respects.


http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2008/081219_sky.html

[kristopher]

1. Other than hallucinations

The Australian government has no basis for legal action.

1) "Territorial waters" is a legally defined term and covers the expanse of water 12 nautical miles from mean low tide line of a state's coast.

2) What is actually at issue is a claim laid by Australia to an *extended* Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) based on a very weak claim to ownership of territory on Antarctica.

3) Under *Australian law* this is Australian territory so within Australia the restraint order (based on the Environment Protection and Biological Conservation Act) is recognized as legitimate.

4) However, under *international law* this territorial claim is not recognized as legitimate - it isn't even close to comporting with international law.

4) Australia doesn't press enforcement of their restraining order in international court because they know their claim to this territory lacks legitimacy and would be met by Japan with a counter appeal to an international body of arbitration such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea asserting that by international law the jurisdiction of Australia and its legal maneuvering within Australia doesn't allow a violation of internationally accepted rules.

5) There is absolutely no question of the outcome of such an appeal.

6) Japan's actions are legal. The persistent talk within Australia of legal action against Japan is nothing more than pandering to an activist base.

7) The real message I see is that Japan's tolerance for the antics of the Sea Shepard are approaching an end.

[Nihil]

2. "Japan's actions are legal" ... *yawn*

:boring:

I suppose you are going to claim that they are "scientific" too?

:rofl:

Ah well, what the hell, have a nice break anyway! :hi:

[kristopher]

3. No, I'll call it like it is

Retribution. The antiwhaling groups engineered a permanent end to whaling through the use of deception and legal loopholes where non-whaling nations were recruited into the IWC specifically to do an end run around the stated goals of the organization. It was a series of unethical tactics employed by people believing that "the end justifies the means". They knew they what they were doing wasn't ethical; technically legal perhaps, but certainly not ethical.
Given that is the context, why should the Japanese not employ similar standards of behavior and exploit a legal, but unethical practice to thwart to goals of those who acted first in bad faith?

Not one person who condemns the Japanese has ever actually addressed that point, I suspect you won't either.