Ocean Sentry
(from theage.com.au) Australia is still considering taking Japan to court over its whaling in the Southern Ocean, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd denying he has abandoned the plan.
On the eve of his first meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in Tokyo, Mr Rudd told the Japan National Press Club that legal action was still an option if diplomacy failed to resolve the issue.
New Zealand has dumped plans to take Japan to court after receiving legal advice that such a challenge was doomed.
Last weekend, Mr Rudd also appeared to be signalling a softening on legal action, focusing on diplomatic efforts in the lead-up to this month”s International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Chile.
But today he said there was no change in the Australian government’s position.
“We have simply said for the period ahead that we’ll be working with our friends in Tokyo on diplomatic solutions to this outstanding agreement,” Mr Rudd said.
“Let us look constructively and positively about what might emerge from (the IWC) meeting and further bilateral discussions between us on this important matter.
“Let’s hope that diplomacy works. But you are wrong to characterise our policy as having changed … in terms of abandoning any possible legal course of action. We simply believe that the best way forward right now is to seek to resolve this matter diplomatically.”
Mr Rudd said he knew that whaling was a sensitive issue in Japan, but said Australia and other countries also had strong views.
“The value of diplomacy is precisely that – that you can work things through quietly behind closed doors and see if there is a way through,” he said.
“It’s tough, it’s difficult, it’s complex, let’s not pretend that it’s not – it is.
“But in a disagreement among friends, let’s hope that diplomacy works.
“And let’s hope also that if diplomacy doesn’t work that we can prosecute our differences still in an atmosphere of friendship.”
The Australia-Japan relationship was important to both countries, but democracies were always going to have different views on different things “and this is one of them”.
“But I’d much rather we were free peoples able to arrive at those different positions rather than anything else,” Mr Rudd said.
He declined to outline the Australian government’s legal advice on the likely success or otherwise of a challenge.
The relationship between the two countries has been strained over the past six months after Australia sent a vessel to gather evidence on Japanese whalers and released footage apparently of a slain mother and calf being hauled from the water.
AAP
