Iceland has walked out of the International Whaling Commission meeting in Japan, following the rejection of its bid to rejoin the IWC, while ignoring its 1986 ban on commercial whaling. The same bid was also rejected in 2001.
“By refusing to accept Iceland as a member of the IWC Convention, a majority of IWC members have violated general principles of international law and the IWC Convention,” the Iceland delegation said in a statement.
Iceland left the IWC 10 years ago, in protest at its moratorium on commercial whaling. Since then, it has had non-voting observer status at the meetings.
On Monday, member nations voted by 25 to 20 against Iceland’s attempt to rejoin with reservations, with three abstentions. The delegation’s walk-out will further deepen the rift between pro- and anti-whaling nations.
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IWC rulings are not backed by international law. Iceland’s IWC commissioner Stefan Asmundsson said the country might consider resuming commercial whaling, in defiance of the ban – but anti-whaling nations, led by Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US, think this is unlikely.
“From the political point of view, it is much better to do it within the framework of the international organisation,” said Asmundsson. “We were hoping to do this within the IWC. We are going to have to sit down and evaluate the whole situation.”
“Scientific whaling”
On Tuesday, leading pro-whaling nation Japan also suffered a blow, when its bid to expand its coastal minke hunt from 100 to 150 was defeated. Major changes to IWC policy or regulations, such as Japan’s proposal, require a three-quarters majority.
But no vote will be needed for Japan to expand its programme of “scientific whaling” for 2003. Japan wants to increase its annual take of minke whales from 400 to up to 800, and to add 50 sei whales to its catch – the WWF says the latter are endangered. Japan and Norway will lead this year’s attempt to overturn the ban on commercial whaling, although it is unclear whether pro-whalers will have the simple majority needed to put the proposal to a vote. In his opening statement to the meeting, Minoru Morimoto, Japan’s IWC commissioner, reiterated Japan’s backing for restricted trade in whale meat, “particularly in the light of the robust status of some whale stocks”.
But whale biologists say that the numbers of many whale species are exceedingly difficult to estimate.
Deadlocked meeting
The 2002 meeting is turning into a re-run of the deadlocked 2001 meeting. Last year, anti-whalers voted against Iceland’s bid to rejoin the IWC with reservations, and against overturning the commercial hunt ban. In their turn, pro-whalers blocked proposals for two whale sanctuaries.
The sanctuaries will be proposed again this year, but it looks unlikely that they will have sufficient support to be pushed through. On Tuesday, Japan abandoned its proposal to end an existing whale sanctuary in the Indian Ocean, claiming discussions on the issue were a waste of time.
The failure of the IWC to pass any key policy-changing decisions in 2001 was widely seen as evidence of its powerlessness, and of the lack of trust between pro- and anti-whaling nations.
The meeting, in Shimonoseki, a former whaling centre, runs until Friday.
