Bulwell MP Graham Allen pleased over decision to stop Japan’s ‘scientific’ whaling

Bulwell MP Graham Allen, has been a long term supporter of ending commercial whaling and is pleased that the World Court has found Japan’s so-called ‘scientific’ whaling programme in the Antarctic failed to meet the conditions for scientific whaling under regulations set by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the body charged with the conservation of whales and the regulation of whaling.
Undated handout photo of Nottingham North MP Graham Allen as David Cameron is facing calls for an urgent rethink of government legislation aimed at preventing future lobbying scandals. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday August 19, 2013. The chairman of the Commons committee which has been examining the Lobbying Bill has warned the plans lack credibility, dismissing them as a "dog's breakfast". Labour MP Graham Allen, who heads the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, said the bill would not open up the £2 billion lobbying industry to effective scrutiny. See PA story POLITICS Lobbying. Photo credit should read: Handout/PA Wire

NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.Undated handout photo of Nottingham North MP Graham Allen as David Cameron is facing calls for an urgent rethink of government legislation aimed at preventing future lobbying scandals. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday August 19, 2013. The chairman of the Commons committee which has been examining the Lobbying Bill has warned the plans lack credibility, dismissing them as a "dog's breakfast". Labour MP Graham Allen, who heads the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, said the bill would not open up the £2 billion lobbying industry to effective scrutiny. See PA story POLITICS Lobbying. Photo credit should read: Handout/PA Wire

NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.
Undated handout photo of Nottingham North MP Graham Allen as David Cameron is facing calls for an urgent rethink of government legislation aimed at preventing future lobbying scandals. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Monday August 19, 2013. The chairman of the Commons committee which has been examining the Lobbying Bill has warned the plans lack credibility, dismissing them as a "dog's breakfast". Labour MP Graham Allen, who heads the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, said the bill would not open up the £2 billion lobbying industry to effective scrutiny. See PA story POLITICS Lobbying. Photo credit should read: Handout/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.

“I am very glad that the World Court has decided that the whaling programme in the Antarctic cannot be deemed ‘scientific’, and that no further permits for scientific whaling should be issued under Japan’s scientific whaling programme,” said Mr Allen. “IFAW had long pushed for whales to have their day in court, and I am very pleased that justice has been served. ”This case came before the ICJ because of two decisions by the IWC; A 1986 decision to ban commercial whaling and a 1994 declaration of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, along with 30 IWC resolutions strongly criticising Japan’s whaling and asking it to stop.

Independent panels of international legal experts reviewing Japan’s scientific whaling programme have consistently found it ‘unlawful’ under international law*.

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Since the global moratorium on commercial whaling was introduced, Japan has killed more than 14,000 whales in the name of science, the vast majority of these in the Southern Ocean.

Scientists at the IWC have never found a way to make whaling humane and little real science has been produced from the slaughter of whales. Scientific analysis of footage of Japan’s whaling in the Southern Ocean has shown whales taking more than half an hour to die.

Non-harmful research on live whales, by contrast, is producing valuable data and IFAW encourages Japan to join Australia, Brazil, the US and others in the Southern Ocean Research Partnership, which coordinates scientific research on Southern Ocean whales and their environment using effective benign techniques.

IFAW works in whaling countries to promote whale watching as a humane and sustainable alternative that is better for whales and for coastal communities.

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