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Ireland today joined with a number of other countries in a demarche to the Government of Japan about its whaling activities. The demarche expresses “serious concern” at the decision of the Government of Japan to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean under what it calls its “New Scientific Research Whale Programme in the Antarctic Ocean (NEWREP-A)”.
The demarche recalls for the Government of Japan the decision of the International Court of Justice in 2014 which held that Japan’s previous Southern Ocean whaling programme was not “for purposes of scientific research” under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling 1946 and was therefore unlawful.
The countries participating in the demarche note that the last Annual Meeting of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission held in June 2015 was unable to confirm that Japan had done enough to justify commencement of lethal sampling in the 2015/16 season. In expressing concern to Japan, Ireland and the other participating countries urge the Government of Japan as a member of the International Whaling Commission to respect the Commission’s procedures, stress that there is no scientific basis to include lethal methods in NEWREP-A and strongly request the Government of Japan not to engage in this whaling programme. Other member states of the EU and New Zealand also participated in the joint demarche.