The government should take the International Court of Justice ruling as a cue to fundamentally rethink Japan's whaling practices and work out ways to balance declining consumer demand for whale meat with the desire of some to preserve the nation's whaling tradition.
The United Nations' top court on March 31 determined that Japan's whaling program in the Antarctic, which has resulted in the hunting of hundreds of whales each year since the late 1980s, deviates from its professed purpose of scientific research, and ordered it halted.
The Japanese government said it accepts the ruling, which cannot be appealed, and the Fisheries Agency plans to halt Antarctic whaling for fiscal 2014, scheduled to begin this fall.