A Japanese whaling ship leaves the port of Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi prefecture, western Japan to resume whale hunting in the Antarctic. (Reuters Photo)
Australia has threated to take legal action against Japan's resumption of Antarctic whaling.
Australia's foreign and environmental ministers said in a statement Monday that the country has joined 32 others to oppose a Japanese whaling expedition that left last week to catch up to 333 minke whales in the Antarctic.
They also said they were considering legal action. Australia filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice in 2010 over Japanese whaling in the Antarctic. The ICJ ruled last year that the hunts weren't scientific, forcing Tokyo to revise its Antarctic whaling program.
Joji Morishita, Japan's commissioner to the International Whaling Commission, said Tokyo had met the new requirements.
The IWC banned commercial whaling in 1986, but Japan has continued killing whales under an exemption for research.