And while Japan openly flouts the ban, in the guise of so called 'scientific whaling', it is at least illegal and one hopes the country will eventually begin honoring the treaties it has signed up to.
No such treaties protect the 23,000 dolphins killed by Japanese fishermen each year - indeed, the dolphins are victims of the whaling ban.
When the whaling moratorium came into force in 1986, the Japanese authorities and fishing industry began slaughtering tens of thousands of dolphins. They did this to satisfy and maintain the Japanese love for whale flesh, which apparently tastes very similar to dolphin.
Within 12 months, the Japanese were killing more than 40,000 dolphins every year. Most were fed to children in school meals, with the rest being exported to China.
Ironically, recent scientific research suggests that the Japanese authorities might be endangering the health of their own children through this practice.
Dolphin meat is full of toxic mercury, cadmium, DDT and carcinogens such as dioxins and PCBs. Some cuts of dolphin meat have more than 5,000 times the safe level of mercury. Such levels can very quickly lead to severe nervous system problems and even insanity.
The dolphin meat is so toxic because the seas around Japan have become a soup of industrial wastes. These poisons become concentrated in fish, which the dolphins then eat. And when the Japanese eat the dolphins, they progressively poison themselves.
'Killing dolphins is horrific, but feeding their meat to children is morally repugnant and ethically untenable,' says Ric O'Barry. 'The government and fishermen put dolphin meat on sale where pregnant women and children can easily buy it. It's killing them.
'If you go to the hospitals around Taiji, you'll find evidence of people with mercury poisoning.'
These poisons are also having a shattering impact on whales and dolphins. Mercury damages their brains and nervous systems, too. And pesticides and other long-lived pollutants devastate their immune systems and cause cancer.
But perhaps the most insidious effect of all is the impact these pollutants have on fertility. Dolphin numbers are plummeting worldwide. Hunting obviously has a big impact, but reduced fertility plays an equally significant role.
And in recent years, yet another problem has begun to threaten dolphins and whales - noise pollution. Not only do both creatures use sound to 'see' underwater, they also rely on it to navigate and communicate.
Sound from ships' engines, oil exploration, and military sonar confuses them and can permanently damage their hearing.
The impact of noise pollution cannot be over-stated. The latest generation of sonar used by both the U.S and Royal navies can seriously harm whales and dolphins.
To put this in perspective, if a submarine uses its sonar at maximum power, then dolphins 100 miles away will hear an ear-splitting sound equivalent to standing next to a jet fighter on full thrust. Such noise pollution is believed to have led to many whale and dolphin stranding in recent years.
Although the killing of dolphins at Taiji is undoubtedly horrific, campaigners fear that an equally horrific fate lies in store for the world's whales. For the International Whaling Commission - at the behest of the U.S government - is currently working on a 'compromise' agreement that would legalize commercial whaling.
For the past 23 years, Japan has ignored international law and hunted whales illegally. To try to bring Japan back into the fold, the IWC is proposing to allow them to kill as many whales as they choose in their own waters.
'If the Japanese get their way, they will have succeeded in slaughtering hundreds of thousands of dolphins in defiance of world opinion,' says Andy Ottaway, director of the UK based welfare group Campaign Whale. 'They will also have won the right to kill thousands of whales.
'But there are also signs of hope. Japan has just voted out a government that was in power for more than 40 years. For the first time in decades, there's a chance that attitudes might begin to change.
'If this issue is raised at the highest level - preferably at Prime Ministerial level - then there is a chance that this slaughter, and that of the whales, might finally end.'
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