Sea Shepherd Agrees Not to Attack Japanese Whalers Any More

Tokyo, Aug. 23 (Jiji Press)--The antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has agreed to stop physical attacks on Japanese whaling vessels and their crew permanently, Japanese whalers said Tuesday. The Institute of Cetacean Research and whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Co., which carry out whaling in the Antarctic Ocean under Japan's scientific research program, said they reached the agreement with Sea Shepherd and its leader, Paul Watson, through mediated negotiations held earlier this month. The agreement is expected to put an end to their court battle, which began in December 2011 with the Japanese side's petition with a federal district court in the U.S. state of Washington seeking an order to stop Sea Shepherd's violent acts of sabotage in high seas. Still, Jeff Hansen, managing director of Sea Shepherd Australia, told Jiji Press that his group "remains committed to defending whales of the Southern Ocean." "Today's settlement...does not apply to Sea Shepherd Australia," he said. Under the agreement, Sea Shepherd, Watson and those acting in concert with them "are permanently enjoined from physically attacking the research vessels and crew and from navigating in a manner that is likely to endanger their safe navigation," the Japanese whaling groups said in a statement. "The enjoined parties cannot approach the research vessels any closer than 500 yards on the open sea," the statement said. Following the deal, the Japanese whaling groups have asked the U.S. district court to enforce a permanent injunction against Sea Shepherd. Under the deal, the Japanese side will pay Sea Shepherd settlement money by returning part of the some 300 million yen that it received in damages from the antiwhaling group. The group paid the damages after a U.S. court in 2014 found it to be in civil contempt of its preliminary injunction prohibiting it from further attacks against the whaling vessels. Sea Shepherd will be prohibited from using the settlement money for antiwhaling activities anywhere around the world. It will also be banned from providing funds to facilitate attacks by other Sea Shepherd entities. Sea Shepherd Australia claims that it is a group different from Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which has its headquarters in the United States. Still, an official of Japan's Fisheries Agency said that the agreement has a certain restraining effect as it bans the provision of funds to other Sea Shepherd entities. The Japanese government canceled its research whaling for fiscal 2014, which ended in March last year, based on a ruling issued by the International Court of Justice that ordered the country to halt the whaling. Japan resumed the whaling in December 2015 by reducing the number of catches. END