IWC Rejects Japan’s Proposal to Resume Commercial Whaling

IWC Rejects Japan’s Proposal to Resume Commercial Whaling

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has rejected Japan’s determined bid to lift the ban on commercial whale hunting on Friday, 14th September 2018, in Florianopolis, Brazil.

With no general agreement on their “Way Forward” proposal, the Japanese pushed for a vote which required a three-quarter majority to pass. However, they were defeated, only achieving 27 votes in support, which included countries Norway and Iceland - the only countries to explicitly allow commercial whaling - while 41 anti-whaling nations led by Australia, the European Union, and the United States voted against the proposal. There were two abstentions, Russia and South Korea, while one country – Monaco – did not participate.

After the vote, Japan’s vice-minister for fisheries Masaaki Taniai said he regretted the vote’s outcome and suggested that Japan would reconsider its membership in the international body, threatening to withdraw Tokyo from the 89-member body if progress could not be made towards a return to commercial whaling and to form a separate body that would cater to the countries that want the return of commercial whaling.

The IWC was set up in 1946 to conserve and manage the world’s whale and cetacean population. The commission suspended commercial whaling in the 1980s after some species had been fished to near extinction, but Japan argues that whale stocks have sufficiently recovered for the ban to be lifted and allow commercial hunting to resume.

In particular, Tokyo had hoped to resume commercial whaling of relatively abundant species of whales "whose population is healthy enough to be harvested sustainably" such as Minke whales, a species it has claimed is in no danger of extinction.

Director of marine conservation at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Patrick Ramage, noted that Japan has frequently threatened to pull out of the body.

The measure’s “adoption would have been a big step backward for the IWC, returning us to the bygone days of open commercial whaling instead of becoming a modern conservation body,” Ramage said in a statement. “The real way forward for whales is conservation and responsible whale watching, not cruel and unnecessary whale killing.”

The Japanese have hunted whales for centuries and see it as a cheaper alternative source of protein. Supporters of eating whale meat frequently say that it is an important part of Japanese heritage and one of the country’s core traditions, and accuses western critics of cultural imperialism.

They currently observe the moratorium but utilizes a loophole in the law, allowing them to hundreds of whales every year for “scientific research purposes” as well as to sell the meat.

The number of whales Japan kills each year is now capped at 333, about a third of the number it used to kill before the International Court of Justice ruled in 2014 that its program wasn’t scientific in nature.

However, some say the research program remains a cover for commercial whaling because the whale meat is sold for food.

The IWC’s decision is fantastic news for whales – animals who are already struggling against a number of threats and would severely suffer from an immense added strain of purposeless whaling.