It is not funny because they forgot the punch line:
"UN court orders Japan to halt Antarctic whaling" by Marlise Simons | New York Times April 01, 2014
PARIS — The United Nations’ highest court Monday ordered Japan to halt its annual whaling hunt in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, saying that its present program was not being carried out for scientific purposes, as Japan has asserted.
In a 12-to-4 judgment, the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that Japan was in breach of its international obligations....
Isn't Japan currently hosting the climate change summit?
The ruling suggested instead that Japan’s whaling hunt served political and economic reasons.
Lawyers attending the proceedings said there was a gasp in the audience when Tomka ordered Japan to immediately “revoke all whaling permits” and not issue any new ones under the existing program.
“I rarely heard such an unequivocal, strong ruling at this court,” said a lawyer with long experience at the court who asked not to be named because he is working on a case in progress.
The ruling is binding, and Japan cannot appeal.
No immediate reaction from Japan was available, although it has said it would abide by any judgment in the case.
But a Japanese delegate said in earlier hearings that Japan might consider withdrawing from the whaling commission....
Didn't they do that with the League of Nations after they initiated WWII?
The court left open the possibility for future whale hunting if Japan redesigned its program. Tokyo has said that it needs data to monitor the impact of whales on its fishing industry and to monitor the whale population’s recovery from overfishing.
Japan has previously all but ruled out joining Norway and Iceland in openly flouting the international consensus against commercial whaling....
Meaning it is being considered.
Meanwhile, Norway is bagging about 500 a year and Iceland 50.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday the government will keep its word and obey the court ‘‘as a state that places a great importance on the international legal order,’’ the Associated Press reported.
However, Suga said Japan has cooperated with the commission for decades ‘‘despite the deep divisions within the commission, and its inability in recent years to function effectively.’’
He left the question of what Japan will do next unanswered.
Australia, a former whaling country, brought the suit against Japan in 2010, accusing the country of using a loophole to get around a 1986 worldwide moratorium on whaling.
Did that affect trade?
The ruling drew praise from environmental groups, including the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which has sent fast ships to the remote and icy waters to block and harass Japan’s whaling fleet.
What remote and icy waters in this age of rising sea levels and cataclysmic climate change?
That moratorium has remained in place despite recommendations from its own scientific committee that some whale species are robust enough to support a whaling industry.
People gotta eat.
--more--"
Meanwhile, Caroline Kennedy tweets about the dolphins and the 300 tons of radioactive water being dumped into the Pacific every day is forgotten.
I suppose I have no $en$e of humor, huh?
