In an interesting change of policy, the Japanese police have finally gotten around to putting out arrest warrants for three environmental activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, for their interference in a whale “research” hunt back in February of 2007.

It took nearly a year and a half for them to conclude that the actions (throwing smoke grenades and entangling the whaling ship’s propeller) of the two Americans, and a Briton classify as “forcible obstruction of business.” Which, I’m sure in this day in age on the high seas, translates to suspicion in the neighborhood of “piracy,” or “terrorism.” The police hope to employ international extradition treaties to have the suspects brought to trial back in Japan.

What’s interesting about this story, is not that the Japanese police are making headlines for actually doing something, but rather why they are doing it. Given the odds of a smooth extradition actually taking place, it would seem that this move is just to make a statement–that Japan will not allow its whaling association to be bullied in its research. This, on the heels of the injunction issued earlier this year which ruled that Japanese whaling vessels were in breach of the Environmental Protection Act by taking fin and minke whales in the Australian whale sanctuary. While both sides have been best known for their eye-for-an-eye headline-making clashes which barely skirt various legalities, the implications of this major legal blow that the whaling association has struck against the activists, could finally perhaps spell talks of a cease-fire, or a shift in volatile tactics on both sides for this year’s approaching whaling season.