Japan said yesterday that it was rethinking its role in the world whaling body and may even consider pulling out after losing a key battle with anti-whaling nations.
Officials in Japan’s delegation to the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) here held a flurry of talks with senior officials in Tokyo.
It followed a closely-contested vote Monday when whaling critics succeeded in forcing through a resolution, known as the ‘Berlin Initiative,’ to beef up the protection of whales.
Japan is one of the world’s top whaling nations, along with Norway and Iceland, which say the commission vote is an attempt to end all whaling for good. Iceland was also considering how to respond to the decision.
“It was a very serious blow to this organisation,” said Japan’s delegation spokesman Joji Morishita.
“Essentially, it totally transforms this organisation from one of resource management to one of total prohibition.”
Japan’s commissioner Minoru Morimoto said the decision “has forced Japan to consider all our options concerning our future participation” in the IWC.
There are understood to be three main options.
They are: leave the IWC altogether; stay in, but resume commercial whaling on a regional level in cooperation with its neighbours China, Russia and South Korea; and stay in but refuse to pay its contributions, which are the highest of any member country.
Another option, to quit the annual meeting in symbolic protest, is thought unlikely because there are still several key issues to come up, such as a bid by Japan to kill another 150 Bryde’s and 150 minke whales a year.
Last Monday’s decision, passed by 25 votes to 20, was effectively an attempt by its supporters Australia, Britain, France, Germany, New Zealand and the United States to forestall any return to commercial whaling.
It envisages the creation by the IWC of a dedicated conservation committee to protect the whale population from over-fishing, pollution, climate change, sea noise, shipping and accidental catch.
It would also set up a trust fund for conservation-oriented research.
The decision shifts the IWC a significant step away from its founding ethos of whaling regulation to one of whale protection.
By doing so, it effectively reinforces a global moratorium on whaling that has been in place since 1986.
Officials in the Japanese and Icelandic delegation have already threatened not to cooperate with the conservation committee.
The whaling nations accuse their critics of blocking more than a decade of talks aimed at allowing a return to limited commercial whaling by setting up a system of variable catch quotas and inspections known as a revised management scheme (RMS).
Japan already kills up to 700 whales a year for what it says is scientific research, although opponents claim it is a pretext for commercial whaling and therefore in breach of the moratorium.
The option of quitting the IWC altogether is a lengthy procedure that would likely need parliamentary approval, so is a long-term tactic.
Tokyo has in the past warned it may quit, so the threat is not new.
As for its contributions, it pays £100,000 pounds a year to the IWC, more than eight percent of the organisation’s budget, so a refusal to pay would be a serious blow.
A resumption of commercial whaling could be achieved in the framework of a North Pacific body similar to one which already exists in the North Atlantic.
Resumption would hurt Japan’s image abroad, but it already bears the brunt of anti-whaling rhetoric anyway.
Iceland’s commissioner Stefan Asmundsson said the conservation decision had polarized the pro- and anti-whaling camps and he was unsure how much more they could work together.
If agreement on the RMS was not reachable, he told AFP, “then we will look at other venues.”