Japan will dispatch a whaling fleet to the Antarctic on Tuesday after a one year suspension, the government said, defying international criticism and a UN legal ruling that the "research" expedition is a commercial hunt in disguise.
"The research ships will depart for new whale research in the Antarctic on December 1, 2015," the Fisheries Agency said Monday in a statement on its website.
Tokyo has for years come under intense global pressure to stop hunts that opponents decry as inhumane but that Japan says are an inherent part of its traditional culture.
The United Nations' top legal body judged last year that Japan's so-called scientific whaling activity in the Southern Ocean was a disguise for commercial hunts.
It's for scientific research. Tasty, tasty research.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2015, @06:38AM
That's a proportional response to lawful whaling.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2015, @09:33PM
It isn't lawful. That is the point. They are defying a lawful order they signed treaties to be bound by.