Japan Says We are Witnessing the Death of the International Whaling Commission
On Friday, the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting came to a close with a whimper. This year’s gathering was held in Chile, and the meeting’s chairperson, United States delegate William Hogarth, made a gutsy and stupid decision. Hogarth wanted to avoid confrontations at this year’s meeting, with the hope of creating good will among countries. He pontificated that this good will could be used to find solutions in the future (not now). Translation: he pleaded for member countries not to vote on or discuss important issues that concern whales. Based on what happened (or more accurately, did not happen), the meeting was very unsuccessful.
Why Was There Tension at This Year’s Meeting?
Japan and other countries like Norway and Iceland are currently killing whales, despite dangerously low numbers for certain species. This has triggered significant disapproval from countries like Australia, who are vehemently opposed to whaling. Japan claims that they kill approximately 1,000 whales each year for scientific purposes. Many countries and environmentalists view this explanation as a blatant lie. They think Japan simply wants to kill whales so that they can sell and eat the meat (Iceland and Norway just want to sell it to Japan it seems). Angered by international criticism of their whaling practices, Japan has threatened to withdraw as a member nation of the International Whaling Commission, barring the condition that countries agree to allow sustainable whaling of abundant whale species.
What Were the Outcomes of This Year’s Meeting?
After this week’s meeting, it seems hard to think of there being much success to talk about. Things got off to a good start as Chile announced that they were initiating a permanent ban on whaling. A proposal by several Latin American countries to create a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary was unfortunately withdrawn at the urging of people like William Hogarth. The only other major events were
- a vote that barely blocked Greenland from hunting 10 more humpback whales per year. 36 member nations voted against the proposal, and 29 voted for it.
- the creation of sub-set of member nations to work on building consensus on contentious issues over the next year.
After the meeting, Reuters ran an article with the title: “Whales lose, Japan wins as whaling meeting ends.” The article includes various quotes of people involved in the meeting, and basically confirms this author’s suspicion that the meeting was largely a bust. AFP quoted William Hogarth as saying he was “very pleased” with the outcome of the meeting. His effort to build consensus at the meeting by doing nothing was, in fact, an incredibly stupid strategy. Japan’s representative was quoted after the meeting as saying “the world is witnessing the death of an international organization.” If Japan is not going to get on board the Hogarth Good Will Express, then what’s the point?
I personally am not opposed to finding a sustainable whaling solution that seeks some middle ground. Perhaps there are some species of whales that are abundant enough to allow for a minimal, token amount of whaling. Having a meeting where nothing of importance is discussed though, in my mind is just plain stupid. Hopefully William Hogarth has lost his chance at chairing any more of the International Whaling Commission’s meetings.
Next year’s International Whaling Commission meeting will be held in Portugal, and hopefully Portugal will announce a permanent ban on Hogarth chairing any more meetings.
Read More about the Meeting in Chile, and Issues Concerning Whales:
Photo Credit: Allan Ferguson on Flickr under a Creative Commons license
I don’t see what the difference is in Japan walking out of IWC to kill 1000 whales, and staying in IWC and still be allowed to kill 1000 whales. What is the point of IWC? If Japan is going to kill 1000 whales in one way or another, why doesn’t the IWC just illegalize whaling altogether, then you can at least arrest them and take them to court for poaching. Otherwise, IWC is being used by Japan to legalize their activities.
You are quite harsh.
The whaling nations have all the best cards in their hands.
Hogarth has no choice but to try to hold the organization together. It is about to fall to pieces. What Hogarth has done is ensure that that does not happen… yet.
Whether this happens eventually (in the next 12 months probably) is largely dependant on the attitude of the anti-whaling nations that have hijacked the whaling commission.
If they are prepared to back-down and accept sustainable whaling, the IWC has a future.
If they aren’t prepared to accept it, then the result is that the whalers will jump ship, and the IWC will be dead as a cooperative international organization seeking to regulate whaling.
Of course, if one is anti-whaling then saving the IWC as an organization that permits sustainable whaling is not very satisfactory at all. But is having an organization that was set up to regulate whaling so that it be sustainable destroyed beyond repair a desirable outcome? Probably not, but for them at least they can maintain their anti-whaling policies.
I think the IWC could have a future, but for political reasons I expect the IWC to die, because the anti-whaling nations will lose more domestically if they cave into the desires of the whaling nations and allow whaling, than if they maintain their anti-whaling stance and play the whaling nations as the bad guys to their domestic constituencies.
wmscott,
As you notice, Japan will ultimately get to hunt whales either way (actually it wants to hunt a sustainable number of whales, not “1000″ specifically).
The point of the IWC was never to ban whaling indefinitely. A “moratorium” is a temporary measure, not a permanent one. What the IWC is seeing today is a concerted effort by whaling nations to get a useless moratorium replaced with more realistic and practical solutions. Some whale stocks can sustain certain levels of hunting. So let’s allow that, and maintain a moratorium for all the other species.
The IWC can not make whaling illegal. The IWC is not some godly body that can decide the rules. Each nation has their own position, each nation is sovereign, and if they don’t like the rules they need not agree to them. It’s like any other international agreement.
So, you are right - Japan wants to use the IWC to legalize their activities. If the IWC does not do it, another agreement will be made with other sovereign states that are interested to do it instead.
Wow, the Japanese people in general are SO cool.
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
I’m from Norway, and I have no problem with whale hunting, There are 3 countries in the world that hunt whales, and all the countries kills a relatively small number compared to the number of healthy individuals of each species.
If there is something you ought to have a problem with it would be the overfishing being done by EU vessels around Africa and the Russians in the north.
C’mon, Japan, Norway & Iceland were fishing nations as far back as history goes, and guess what, we are the only ones who will have fish in the next 50 years aswell because we dont overfish - we did it once with whales 200 years ago. Now everyone else overfish and points a finger to the guys who are hunting whales!
Btw, whale tastes quite good actually
South Pacific islanders have traditionally eaten human flesh.
Should they be allowed to harvest people from Japan, Norway and Iceland?
PS - World fish yield peaked in 1987. Overfishing is real.
Common Japan….. So Progressive in Every Way, But can not give up their Sea Food Heritage.
Japanese say it is their cultural right to hunt whales. Well, if they feel that is the truth, let them hunt whales in the cultural way - wooden boats and hand thrown spears instead of factory ship fleets with tenders supplying fuel and food and so on.
If they dont agree to that I think it is time to start calling for an International Japanese Hunting Commission to limit the number of Japanese whalers that can be hunted before their extinction. For my part, I dont think Greenpeace go far enough. They ought to take a leaf out of the French Military handbook and do to the Japanese whaling ships what the French did to the Rainbow Warrior.
Where’s PETA when they REALLY are needed instead of sticking themselves in front of cameras, the lazy layabouts?
[...] that it’s jokingly called the “International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna,” Japan openly gloated about how they ruined the International Whaling Commission this [...]