Scientific whaling and how philosophy of science can help break the international deadlock

Abstract

Despite widespread public interest on the topic of whaling, there isat present relatively little work on how philosophy might contributeto analysis of the status of whaling in international law. Whenphilosophers have looked at the topic of whaling, they haveconfined their attention to a fairly narrow set of ethical questions,such as whether international law should permit certain forms oftraditional indigenous whaling or extend legal rights to whalesthemselves. However, there is another important issue which hasso far been largely neglected by philosophy, even though it is atthe forefront of current international legal disputes over the statusof whaling: the issue of so-called scientific whaling. This articleconsiders the international legal dispute between Australia, NewZealand and Japan over the latters lethal harvesting of whales inthe Southern Ocean, and the recent attempt at resolution by theInternational Court of Justice. On its face, this required that theCourt demarcate scientific from unscientific activity; however, iteffectively baulked at this task. The authors argue that thisapproach of the Court was unfortunate, and that demarcatingscience from commerce is not only achievable in philosophy, butmight also inform international legal practice. Resolving this issueis important for genuine progress to be made in the currentinternational stand-off over Japanese whaling in the SouthernOcean.