New Zealand is taking the lead from Australia against Antarctic whaling, with a plan that could prevent the Japanese hunt from being renewed in late 2015.
The NZ government wants the International Whaling Commission to strictly control approval of "scientific permits" under a plan that would not allow a hunt until at least the following year.
The proposal, to go before the IWC meeting in September, is likely to meet strenuous opposition from Japan, which has confirmed its intention to renew Southern Ocean whaling in about 18 months.
New Zealand intervened in the International Court of Justice case brought by Australia, which in March outlawed Japan's former hunt as a violation of the global moratorium on commercial whaling.
Since then Australia has said little, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott telling reporters after the Japanese leader's Australian visit in July: "I don't absolutely agree with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on whaling."
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who faces an election in September, engaged directly with Mr Abe in Auckland on the issue after the Japanese leader's Australian visit.
Mr Key said: "New Zealand's view is there is no place for whaling, scientific or otherwise."
IWC rules let each country issue their own scientific permits. But, in deciding the Japanese program was illegal, the ICJ set benchmarks, including careful scientific justification of any whale killing, and consideration of non-lethal methods.
In a draft resolution to the IWC, New Zeland asks that "no further special permits for the take of whales are issued" until both the IWC scientific committee, and the commission itself, assess plans for the kill.
The scientific committee meets next in mid-2015, and the 88-nation commission gathers biennially, meaning if the NZ proposal were adopted, Japan's hunt might not be considered until 2016.
"We want to ensure that the ICJ judgment is fully taken account of in any future consideration of special permit whaling," a spokeswoman for NZ Foreign Minister Murray McCully said.
"New Zealand has put forward the resolution with a view to the IWC having a constructive conversation on the appropriate way forward, taking into account the Court's decision."
The Japanese government has outlined its own timeline for the new hunt, telling the scientific committee it will submit a proposal no later than November, for examination by a workshop next January, and final review by the committee mid-next year.
A spokesman for Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt said Australia would consider New Zealand's draft IWC resolution carefully, along with its broader approach to the IWC meeting.
The Australian Marine Conservation Society's director, Darren Kindleysides, said the bigger question was whether Australia would join the action.
"There is no sign that Australia is applying the blowtorch to Japan over whaling, though there was clearly a strong public expectation the Prime Minister would continue to maintain pressure," he said.
The Japanese whaling factory fleet returned to port this week after its first "research" hunt since the ICJ decision. The fleets took 90 endangered sei whales and 25 brydes whales in the North Pacific.
Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi has said the fleet's harpoon ships will go south in the 2014-15 summer, but only to count whales, and Sea Shepherd activists have promised to pursue them.
A US District Court recently upheld an injunction against the activists approaching the whalers, but the court is yet to say whether the group's US organisation was in contempt of the injunction during clashes at sea in 2012-13.
Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said: "I believe that Japan is lobbying hard in both Washington, DC, and in Canberra to support their efforts to return to the Southern Ocean.
"I predict that Australia will not oppose their crimes as long as Tony Abbott is Prime Minister."
