14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, the chair of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), Cristian Maquieira, proposed a draft on a new international agreement aimed at regulating whaling across the world's oceans. The proposal was neither black nor white, and featured numerous compromises, on the part of both pro-whaling and anti-whaling nations. This week, officials from Australia and Japan, countries that have opposite views on whaling, announced that they would not support the document. The nations also exchanged harsh words, as international tensions between them rise again.
The two states have been engaged in a dispute over the fact that Japan practices its illegal whale hunt in the water south of Antarctica for many years. However, the discussions escalated recently, as Australian officials promised to end Japanese whaling, and elections are coming up soon. The Southern nation told Japan it would bring the Asian country to the International Court of Justice if it continues its practices. Japan whales under an exemption from the 1986 UN moratorium on whaling, but actions from environmentalists have uncovered that the whale meat is actually sold in stores and supermarkets.
Under the proposal Maquieira made, Japan was to be allowed to legally hunt a reduced quota of whales, but only for a limited amount of time. The maximum allowed number was to be reduced within 10 years. But Japan said it would not accept this compromise, which it views as an unfounded restriction to what – despite evidence to the contrary – it continues to call its scientific program. Together with other rogue nations such as Norway and Iceland, Japan is responsible for the killing of more than 33,000 whales over the past 24 years.
“As usual, [Japan] wants everything and will give nothing away in exchange,” said of the country's response IWC Scientific Committee US delegate Phillip Clapham, who is also a cetacean biologist. Due to the deep divide between pro-whaling and anti-whaling nations, the IWC has had its activity paralyzed for many years. The new proposal, if agreed upon, would have not allowed the three main whaling nations to set their own quotas, and would have brought them under international control. This is one of the main reasons why Japan refused, and also, in the eyes of many, a clear admission of the fact that they are less interested in whale science than they are in whaling profits.
The US have “rejected the proposal. However, it supports the process to revise IWC and is participating in the ongoing negotiations. The United States will try to lead multinational efforts to maximize conservation efforts for the whales. But what is achievable will only be known in Agadir [at the full IWC meeting], not before,” said the deputy IWC US commissioner, Douglas DeMaster, quoted by ScienceNews.