International Whaling Commission(IWC) Chair seeks another year for his ‘peace proposal’
Admitting that a Special Working Group “has fallen short” of the goal of devising a package of measures to bring renegade whaling back under control, the IWC’s Chair has sought another year of negotiations to find agreement. WDCS says “no thank you”.
At last year’s annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the Chair of the Commission initiated a series of secret negotiations with Japan. The aim of the Small Working Group (SWG) was to agree a package of measures that would restore control of the commercial whaling that has proliferated since a moratorium was agreed in 1982.
In March this year, the SWG published its first recommendations; to prioritize three key issues (scientific whaling, Japanese coastal whaling and sanctuaries) and to tackle them in two stages: In a five year interim period, starting in 2009, short-term solutions (legalization of coastal whaling by Japan in return for voluntary reductions in one of its scientific whaling programmes) would be implemented to reduce the number of whales killed. These voluntary measures would expire in 2014 and, in their place, long term measures negotiated during the interim period would be adopted.
Members of the SWG have held at least two more meetings since March to negotiate the finer details of the package, but the progress report released on the 18th May reveals that nothing more of substance has been agreed.
Sue Fisher, Whaling Programme lead at WDCS says. “Reading between the lines of this so-called progress report makes it is abundantly clear that Japan has no interest in doing a deal and is blocking agreement on anything that would inhibit its whaling free-for-all. It is typical that after a year of negotiations, progress can only be defined as reaching an understanding that that the solutions would not be construed as signifying agreement by any party with each of its details. Excuse me, but doesn’t this miss the point”.
The compromise deal, initiated and overseen in closed meetings by the Bush-appointed Commissioner for the USA and Chair of the IWC, has drawn the ire of conservation groups like WDCS who protest that it seeks to sanction commercial whaling for the first time since the commercial whaling moratorium was put in place over twenty years ago. Furthermore, it would allow Scientific Whaling to continue, ignores the expanding commercial whaling in Norway and Iceland, and underplays the threat posed by expanding international trade in whale products.
With its narrow focus on just one of Japan’s scientific whaling hunts, the deal proposed in March essentially condones Japan’s scientific whaling in the North Pacific and ignores the interest of other nations in resuming, or commencing, commercial whaling and trade. WDCS protested this omission at the time and believes its fears have been vindicated. During the March meeting, South Korea announced its intention to begin commercial whaling. Since then Norway has launched another big whale hunt, Iceland is about to resume commercial whaling and international trade in whale meat through loopholes in the ban imposed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species is at an all time high.
Sue Fisher is unsurprised that the so-called ‘peace process’ has stalled: “We never expected it to work. We’ve lived through efforts like this before and Japan never cooperates because it has nothing to gain from a compromise deal; even the weak and unenforceable one that has been proposed. Right now, Japan, Norway and Iceland can take as many whales as they want and can trade whale meat internationally through loopholes in international rules. The IWC and its member governments have to stop looking inside the box for ways to encourage Japan to reduce its whaling; they should be looking outside the IWC for ways to make all whaling nations stop.”
She continues: “Enough deal making at the IWC; it just doesn’t work. The Chair should be thanked for his efforts, and the IWC should move on to issues that it can resolve, like the effective management of Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling. Ending commercial whaling is simply not within the power of the IWC. But it is attainable by those member governments with the strongest diplomatic and economic relationships with the whaling nations. Anything is possible if you make it enough of a political priority.”
Considering that commercial whaling has never been effectively managed; that there is no humane way to kill a whale at sea, no scientific certainty about the ability of whale populations to withstand hunting in the face of growing environmental threats, and no pressing human need for whale products, WDCS argues that it is time to consign commercial whaling to history.