Activists win right to sue Japanese whalers

An animal rights group today won the right to sue a Japanese whaling company for allegedly killing hundreds of whales inside an Australian reserve.

Last year, the Federal Court denied Humane Society International permission to sue Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku for allegedly slaughtering around 400 minke whales in Antarctic waters that the Australian government has declared a whale sanctuary.

But today the Federal Court in Sydney overturned that decision, saying the judge had incorrectly taken political considerations into account.

In the original ruling, Federal Court judge James Allsop held that Australia cannot legally block the company from hunting in international waters protected by Australia because Tokyo does not recognise Australia’s jurisdiction there.

Humane Society International appealed against the decision to the full court, and Allsop’s two colleagues on the bench found that he had relied too heavily on a government submission claiming the proposed lawsuit would harm Australia’s relations with Japan.

“We are also persuaded that the primary judge was in error in attaching weight to what we would characterise as a political consideration,” Chief Justice Michael Black and Justice Ray Finkelstein said in their judgment.

“It may be accepted that while legal disputes may occur in a political context, the exclusively political dimension of the dispute” cannot be resolved in the courts, the judgment said.

A spokeswoman for Humane Society International, Nicola Beynon, said the organisation would file an injunction against Kyodo Senpaku sometime next week, and hoped to resolve the matter before the whale-hunting season begins in December.

“Humane Society International is really pleased that the Federal Court has given us the go ahead to commence proceedings against the Japanese whaling company,” she said. “Every time they kill a whale inside the Australian whaling sanctuary it’s a breach of Australian law.”