Internet retail giant Rakuten is terminating sales of whale products through its Japanese marketplace Rakuten Ichiba and has given merchants 30 days to remove them. The move came after EIA launched the report Blood e-Commerce, exposing Rakuten as the world’s biggest online marketplace for ivory and whale meat products
Australia took Japan to the ICJ in 2010, alleging it was intentionally taking advantage of a loophole in the 1986 commercial whaling ban by claiming it was killing the whales for scientific research. The Court ruled overwhelmingly in favour of Australia
The report “Blood e-Commerce: Rakuten’s profits from the slaughter of elephants and whales” – released by the EIA in conjunction with Humane Society International (HSI) – reveals that the company’s Japanese website carries more than 28,000 ads for elephant ivory products and some 1,200 whale meat products ads
Launching its new report Toxic Catch: Japan’s unsustainable and irresponsible whale, dolphin and porpoise hunts in Tokyo, EIA urged the Government of Japan to phase out the hunts over a 10-year period through targeted actions to restore depleted cetacean populations and work with hunters to find alternative livelihoods
As the world’s first legally binding international treaty to curb the release of mercury into the environment was formally signed today (October 9), a coalition of NGOs urged countries to take immediate steps to address communities at particular risk of contamination from the consumption of whale and dolphin products
Wildlife advocates expressed bitter disappointment today at the refusal of international conglomerate SoftBank Corp to ban advertisements for elephant ivory and whale & dolphin products on Yahoo! Japan, the dominant company in SoftBank’s internet division with revenues of nearly US$4 billion in 2012