Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
On March 31, 2014, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its judgment in the case of Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan: New Zealand Intervening) (Whaling Decision). In what is perhaps its most important environmental decision to date, the ICJ ordered Japan to halt its whaling program in the Southern Ocean, finding the program lacked scientific merit and breached requirements of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW).
* This text was reproduced and reformatted from the text available at the International Court of Justice (visited January 7, 2015), http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/148/18136.pdf.
1 Whaling in the Antarctic (Austl. v. Japan: N.Z. Intervening), Judgment, 2014 I.C.J. 148 (Mar. 31), available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/148/18136.pdf [hereinafter Whaling Decision].
2 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, Dec. 2, 1946, 161 U.N.T.S. 72 [hereinafter ICRW].
3 Id. pmbl.
4 Id. arts. I.1, III.
5 Whaling Decision, supra note 1, ¶¶ 36–41. Both Japan and Australia have submitted optional declarations under Article 36(2) of the ICJ Statute accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court. On this basis, the ICJ found it had jurisdiction to hear the merits of Australia’s claims and that this jurisdiction was not excluded by a clause in Australia’s declaration exempting disputes relating “to the exploitation of any disputed area of or adjacent to” a disputed maritime zone.
6 Id. ¶¶ 14–22.
7 See Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Arg. v. Uru.), Judgment, 2010 I.C.J. 15 (Apr. 20), available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=&case=135&p3=4.
8 Whaling Decision, supra note 1, ¶ 50.
9 Id. ¶ 233.
10 Id. ¶ 55.
11 Id. ¶ 58.
12 Id. ¶ 61.
13 Id. ¶ 67.
14 Id. ¶ 69.
15 Id. ¶ 82.
16 Id. ¶ 127.
17 Id. ¶ 130.
18 Id. ¶ 94.
19 Id. ¶ 135.
20 Id. ¶¶ 224–226.
21 Id. ¶ 94.
22 Id. ¶ 224.
23 Id. ¶ 209.
24 Id. ¶ 245.
25 Id. ¶ 246.