Land Down Under is taking the Land of the Rising Sun to court over whaling:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/0 … index.html
To be honest… I’ve always wondered how Japan gets away with the “research” lie… I mean if you’re killing 1000 whales a year for scientific study, where’s the collected data and what’s the theories being proved? What do we not know about dead whales, that needs to be known?
Can’t wait to see how the case is thrown out (cause we all know it will get thrown out).
The UN? The UN is nothing but some sort of political playground for the wealthier countries to trample over the poorer countries, for countries to stage some “play” and so on. 
I seriously doubt Japan and Australia will actually do much except for bitch-fighting like: imposing sanctions, squabbling using agreements(whatever the hell those are), engaging in “pretend military fights” if they want to(no one can afford a WW III) and convince themselves they’re actually doing “something” about certain critical problems(dwindling fresh water,dwindling ecosystem and so on). The whole “fighting thing” is a farce so, it doesn’t really matter what happens anyways.
The UN is almost helpless anyways. There’s little they’ll do, that’d actually work. I remember how “they”(the UN) tried to bring the leaders of the Khmer Rogue to “justice”. Big success it was.
But at least they manage to give a bit of aid to people in trouble… just a bit 'cos most of the time, it goes into the pockets of corrupt officials anyways. It’s pathetic how it requires people like Angelina Jolie, to literally kick their asses into motion. .___.
A long term victory for Australia would be to lower the number allowed: say they get it reduced to 500 whales a year. Another would be forcing Japan to stop whaling around Australia and/or it’s claimed territories in Antarctica.
However you’re right: it’s just a political ploy to bring greater attention about Japan’s criminal whaling. What’s interesting, is the case requests Japan reveal their decades of research, gained from killing thousands of whales. Which of course, we all know will be faked… but if Australia is serious, they’ll have their own experts either debunk Japan’s evidence, or prove how the same conclusions can be gained without killing thousands of whales.
It’s basically a tit-for-tat thing though… Japan filled a lawsuit against anti-whaling Australians, so the Austs are fighting back. If Japan drop the charges, they might do the same.
EDIT
Some of the reactions on 2chan are rather interesting. They’re all up in arms, about more foreigners getting in Japan’s business. More over, Australia is one of the strictest Western nations, when it comes to drawn pornography… so it’s like a double strike. :lol:
It’s a complicated issue with (I think) only two real workable long-term solutions. One, the Japanese culture changes slowly over time, and eventually they don’t think of whale meat as a delicacy anymore. Two, there is some sort of compromise arrived at where a limited amount of whale hunting for meat is explicitly sanctioned, in exchange for (say) the Japanese spending a considerable amount of money on whale preservation efforts to ensure their harvest is manageable.
Because what we have now is a policy that the Japanese agreed to participate in, without ever actually having the political will nor the popular sentiment to follow through on. The Japanese public (according to what I’ve read) likes their whale meat, and that’s that. They support whale hunting. It’s like why Prohibition was doomed - people just simply aren’t willing to do it. Either that attitude changes - and the Japanese public decides yes, they should stop the whaling - or the Japanese are going to continue whaling. Eventually, the whaling opponents will realize some kind of a deal needs to be struck, and that will be that.
There’s another scenario: hunted species of whales become endangered or extinct, whereupon Japan is strictly forbidden or unable to hunt said whales. I think that’s the most likely situation to happen, since Japan is perfectly willing to hunt these whales into extinction.
It really comes down to the minke population. Is there really 760,000 of them? If so… no worries… but if those figures are wrong, and say it’s 100,000… then there’s going to be a problem. There’s also the other concern, that if Japan is willing to break or twist whaling laws, they’re likely to break more than just one. What’s to stop them from hunting humpback blue whales?