Are We Going to See Commercial Whaling Again Soon?

For the last several years, the number of pro-whaling states in the International Whaling Commission (the constituent organ for the International Whaling Convention) has been steadily increasing. In particular, Japan, renowned for its “scientific whaling,” has courted various states to join the Convention and support its push for more whaling through a regional management scheme that would alleviate the moratorium on commercial whaling that has been in place for the last several decades. Although the conservation movement obviously has enormous popular appeal, pro-whaling states argue that the point of the Convention (and the Commission) was to “manage” whaling, not to eliminate it. They also argue that the Convention has worked to such a degree that certain whale stocks are now sufficient to return to whaling.

The IWC is having its annual meeting through Tuesday, June 20, at a resort in St. Kitts. And for the first time, it appears that the pro-whaling bloc outnumbers the pro-moratorium states. Now, this doesn’t mean the end of the moratorium, since under the Convention’s Article III(2), amendments to the Schedule–in which states agreed to the moratorium–require a three-fourths majority, which Japan and company still lack. But, undoubtedly, since other decisions of the IWC are taken by a majority vote, Japan and its allies have the potential to chip away at some of the Convention’s other pro-conservation measures.

So far the Japanese bloc has had little success, losing on several early votes; one concerning conservation measures for porpoises and another on whether to have votes taken by secret ballot. These losses were largely due, however, to the fact that several pro-whaling states’ delegations had yet to arrive at the conference. Thus, interested readers should stay tuned to see what happens over the next few days and if the pro-whaling majority coalesces for the first time since the moratorium was put in place in 1982.

UPDATE: For the first time, a majority of the IWC has voted to resume commercial whaling on the grounds that the moratorium was meant to be temporary. The vote was 33 to 32 with one abstention. The vote has no legal effect, however, as the pro-whaling bloc still needs to pick up a supermajority of three-quarters of the parties to end the moratorium. Details can be found here.