New Zealand and Australia v. Japan (Southern Bluefin Tuna Cases)
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
1999 I.T.L.D.S Reports 280
Australia and New Zealand (plaintiffs) challenged Japan's (defendant) experimental fishing program for southern bluefin tuna (SBT) as violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the precautionary principle, arguing scientific evidence showed the program risked further depleting an already seriously threatened tuna stock, while Japan argued available science showed no such danger and that the program was needed to better understand the stock's resilience.
Whether nations must adopt precautionary conservation measures to prevent potential harm to a threatened marine species even where the scientific evidence regarding the activity's environmental effects remains inconclusive.