The 2002 IWC Annual Meeting

By Kate O'Connell, CSI Board

It is clear from discussions with participants that the 54th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), held in the Japanese whaling port of Shimonoseki from the 20th through the 24th of May, will go down in history as the most contentious meeting ever. Tempers flared as the host government, Japan, pushed the Commission on all fronts in its efforts to reopen commercial whaling. In contrast to the warm and welcoming attitude of the people of Shimonoseki, representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Fisheries (MAFF) verbally attacked delegates and observers, and threw the meeting into disarray at several points.

The opening day of the meeting, May 20th, bore a strong resemblance to the 2001 meeting's first session. As with last year, the key issue discussed during the early hours of the 54th Meeting was that of Iceland's proposal to rejoin the Commission with a reservation on paragraph 10(e), the language that enshrines the commercial whaling moratorium, or ban, within the Schedule of the whaling convention. Many governments made clear their views that Iceland, which had been a member of the IWC in the past and had agreed to the whaling moratorium previously, could not be allowed to rejoin with such a reservation. Such a reservation, it was felt, would threaten international treaty law.

After a hotly contested verbal debate, a vote was taken, and upheld the 2001 decision that Iceland could not attend the IWC meetings as a voting member as long as it insisted on the reservation. This was agreed by 25 votes in favor to 20 votes against. Iceland then walked out of the meetings and called the vote against its wishes "illegal". The 2002 vote against Iceland was much stronger than last year's tally.

The voting margin seemed to come as a surprise to many of the whalers, who had been making statements to the press in the months prior to the 54th Meeting that indicated a belief that they would win at least a simple majority of support within the IWC. Japanese MAFF officials in particular had been quoted as saying that they thought the tide had turned against whale conservation, and towards whaling. These officials likely were basing their belief on the fact that Japan has engaged in an all out effort to recruit new pro-whaling countries into the Commission, and in the weeks immediately preceding the IWC, four new pro-Japanese votes came into the IWC: Benin, Gabon, Palau and Mongolia. All of these new members receive substantial and targeted aid from Japan.

The latter country raised eyebrows among the conservationists who participate at both the IWC and at CITES (the international treaty dedicated to the regulation of trade in endangered species). At the last CITES meeting, held in Kenya in 2000 (see Whales Alive!, July 2000), Mongolia was vocal in its support of the Japanese proposals to remove the ban on trade in whale products. It was subsequently revealed in a BBC documentary that the Mongolian delegate's travel expenses had been paid for by a Japanese pro-wildlife trade group, the Japan Bekko Association. Needless to say, when the Mongolian IWC delegate appeared, it then came as no surprise that that country voted in full support of Japan.

Japan had been hoping to gain at least a simple majority within the Commission, and to also gain a special quota for an "interim relief allocation" of 50 minke whales for its coastal whalers. The Japanese have made this same request for some fifteen years, and as in previous years, the proposal failed by a margin of 20 votes for, 21 against with 3 abstentions. These two very public failures by Japan's MAFF were to have strong repercussions on the remainder of the meeting.

Although the IWC has accepted and endorsed a Revised Management Procedure (RMP, a method of calculating whale kill quotas) for commercial whaling, it has noted that "work on a number of issues, including specification of an inspection and observer system must be completed (called the Revised Management Scheme or RMS) before the Commission will consider establishing catch limits other than zero". The RMS discussions took up much of the middle days of the week-long session.

Japan had presented a proposed resolution on the adoption of a very weak RMS, which highlighted the concern that the whalers are unwilling to agree to any kind of international control over their activities. The Japanese RMS failed to consider satellite tracking of whaling vessels, full observer coverage, and methods for tracking whale products. Such a weak proposal, which fails to meet even minimal fisheries management advice, underscores the conservation community's belief that given that whalers are out for profit, they will be unwilling to allow for strict controls of their activities. The Japanese proposal failed to gain the needed 3/4 majority for passage.

The Swedish delegation (the current chair of the IWC is Mr. Bo Fernholm of Sweden) then promoted a "counter-RMS". This proposal failed as well, as many of the like-minded conservation governments felt that the proposal was premature. Mexico in particular was vocal in its comments that as the whalers had done nothing but to act in bad faith regarding the IWC's management decisions, it was unwilling to vote for an RMS which would lead to the full-fledged resumption of commercial whaling. The Commission agreed to hold an intersessional Commissioners' meeting in October 2002 to continue discussions on the RMS.

Other issues at the fore of the midweek discussions were the various proposals related to whale sanctuaries. The South Pacific Whale Sanctuary failed, with 24 votes for, 16 against and 5 abstentions while the South Atlantic Sanctuary proposal fell by a margin of 23 votes for, 18 against and four abstentions. However, conservationists were very heartened to see that both these proposals fared substantially better than in last year's voting. Japan, which has continued hunting minke whales in the Antarctic in spite of the declaration of the Southern Ocean as a whale sanctuary in 1994, attempted to revise that sanctuary to allow for whaling; the proposal to change the provisions for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was not adopted (17 votes for, 25 against and 2 abstentions). It should be noted that, as in last year's meeting (see Whales Alive!, October 2001), the Scientific Committee of the IWC noted a substantial reduction in the minke whale population that is targeted by Japan in the Antarctic.

It was at the point that the Commission began its discussions on catch limits for aboriginal subsistence whaling that the meeting truly became a powder keg of emotions. As mentioned earlier, Japan's MAFF had had to face several key and very public defeats on its home turf, and in an apparent bid to put pressure on the IWC, the Japanese delegation engaged in what amounted to tactical blackmail, using the aboriginal subsistence whaling issue as a lever.

Despite clear agreement by the IWC's Scientific Committee that the bowhead whale stock was able to sustain a certain level of harvest, a proposal to continue to allow for the take of 280 bowhead whales for the period of 2003-2006 by the Alaskan Inuit and Russian Chukhotkan peoples failed to reach the necessary three-quarters majority (32 votes were in favor, 11 against and 2 abstentions). It became clear in the interventions made by Japan and many of its cohorts that the bowhead quota was being held hostage to the failed Japanese proposal on the "interim relief allocation". The reason given by some of those 11 who voted against the Inuit/Chukhotkan quota proposal said that they believed Japan should also be allocated subsistence whales for four coastal whaling villages.

The Japanese at various points attempted to push the US into a quid pro quo arrangement: "your bowheads for our minkes". Fortunately, the US delegation held firm against the pressure and did not engage in any type of side deal with Japan. Rolland Schmitten, head of the US delegation, issued a strongly worded statement to the press, and accused the Japanese of literally taking food out of the mouths of starving peoples. Schmitten, following the outcome of the vote, stated that, "In the history of the IWC, it was the most unjust, unkind and unfair vote ever taken. The vote denied people the ability to feed their families." The US has vowed to come back to the Commission to try and revisit the outcome of the vote, and to seek for the restoration of the quota allocation. It was the first time since the 1970s aboriginal hunting quotas had been denied.

Subsequent to the IWC meeting, the bowhead issue escalated into a major diplomatic issue between the US and Japan. The United States protested the decision to the highest levels of the Japanese government, and Secretary of State Colin Powell told Alaska Governor Tony Knowles he would try to get the decision changed.

On July 4th, 2002, Japanese MAFF Minister Tsutomu Takebe indicated that perhaps Japan would be willing to change its stand. In a statement to the press, "Japan's basic policy is not to block the whaling quota of these people," he said. "My ministry has already conveyed our stand to the United States through diplomatic routes." Takebe, whose ministry oversees Japanese fisheries, cautioned, however, that more talk is needed on whether the Alaskan quota endangers the local whale population. He said Japan would oppose a quota that does so.

Other subsistence quotas did pass in the end. A total catch of 620 eastern North Pacific gray whales will be allowed for the years 2003-2006 with a maximum of 140 in any one year. This quota opens up the possibility of gray whale hunting for the Russian Chukhotkans. The wording of the quota highlights that it is for "those peoples whose needs have been recognized". Many conservation groups question whether this should be allowed to apply to the Makah people of Neah Bay, Washington (who also wish to hunt gray whales), as there are concerns about whether that proposed hunt meets IWC guidelines for aboriginal subsistence whaling.

The Greenland whale hunts were the subject of some discussion during the working group on aboriginal whaling, as information was provided to that group that whale products sourced from that hunt had actually been found for sale in Denmark, despite IWC and CITES decisions. However, in the end, the Commission, so taken up with the bowhead brawl, spent only a cursory amount of time looking at the issue, and the quotas passed, allowing for the Greenlanders to take fin and minke whales.

The Saint Vincent and Grenadines humpback whale hunt off the tiny island of Bequia has been a source of much concern for conservationists, as the hunters have repeatedly violated IWC rules prohibiting the killing of mother/ calf pairs of whales. The St. Vincent hunt was approved, and for the seasons 2003-2007 the number of humpback whales to be taken by the Bequians of St. Vincent and the Grenadines shall not exceed 20. However, there were caveats placed upon the quota, and the meat and products of such whales are to be used exclusively for local consumption in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Also, the humpback whaling must be conducted under formal local national legislation that St. Vincent must pass, and provide to the IWC.

As the IWC ended its run in Shimonoseki, it was clear that the whalers have decided to launch a full-fledged assault on the Commission, and will continue to try and reopen full-scale commercial whaling. The Japanese whaling fleet of five ships has just left for a three-month hunt in the northwest Pacific. They intend to catch 260 whales - 150 minke, 50 Bryde's, 50 sei and 10 sperm whales - before returning in September. Norwegian whalers are currently trying to fill their self-issued quota of minke whales in the North Atlantic, in defiance of the moratorium.

New financial regulations passed during the 2002 meeting could well make it easier for Japan to bring in new, pro-whaling countries in time for the 2003 meeting to be held in Berlin, Germany. And less than a fortnight after the IWC closed its meeting, Japan announced that it will seek to tackle the CITES ban on trade in whale products. The next CITES meeting will be held in Santiago, Chile in November of 2002, and conservationists are already gearing up for a battle as contentious as that of IWC 54.

CSI urges its members to help take up the fight to save whales, and to make your voice heard. Please contact the White House and the US State Department and ask that they hold firm in their support for whale conservation. Mention in particular that the US should not accept any pressure by Japan to exchange the aboriginal subsistence bowhead whale quota for commercial minke whaling. Also ask that the US continue to support the CITES ban on trade in whale products. Please write/fax/email to the addresses below. We ask that you send a copy of your message to CSI at: P.O. Box 953, Georgetown, CT 06829 U.S.A.

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Tel: 202-456-1414
Fax: 202-456-2461
Email: president@whitehouse.gov

Secretary of State Colin Powell
U.S. Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
Tel: 202-647-4000
Fax: 202-261-8577
Email: Secretary@state.gov

If you would like to read copies of ECO, the conservation community's newsletter at the annual IWC meeting, you can get copies on-line at http://www.eii.org/immp/. Simply click on the ECO logo. CSI is one of several conservation groups that helps support the publication of ECO, and your donations to us have helped make that possible.

If you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can access video clips of the meeting itself at http://www.e-kujira.or.jp/iwc/iwcmeeting/html. While the voice is in Japanese, some of the exchanges are so clearly bitter and emotional that you can get a feel for the difficult nature of IWC 54.

The April Whales Alive! article, "IWC: A Challenging Meeting on the Horizon", referred to the Makah being permitted by NMFS to hunt the "local resident" population of gray whales. The whales in question should be termed "summer" or "seasonal" residents, as these whales generally arrive with the northern migration and leave with the southern migration.