More news from IWC54 in Shimonoseki, Japan

24 May 2002

This year's battle for the whales comes to an end in Shimonoseki

There were no speeding inflatable boats, no water hoses, but the democratic process took a pummeling this week at the IWC as Japan used its bought voting bloc to stop sanctuaries and deny indigenous people subsistence quotas.

For the second day in a row, indigenous people, the Inuit and Chukotka, were denied their subsistence quota for Bowhead whales today.

Japan now has the United States over a barrel as the US is obliged by its treaty obligations with the Inuit to grant them their whaling quota.

To meet their treaty requirements the US will now have to contravene the IWC decision, setting a precedent that Japan and its alternate delegate Masayuki Komatsu will find very useful in pursuing their target of another 25 minke whales for their coastal whalers.

John Frizell gives a final update describing what has happened in the meeting over the last day including the votes on the Revised Management Schemes (RMSs) and what this means for the future of the commercial whaling ban.

Subsistence whaling is very different from the Fisheries Agency of Japan's request for 25 Minke whales for coastal whaling. Coastal whaling is for profit, not to simply survive.

Ocean's campaigner Richard Page says this is the most acrimonious IWC meeting Greenpeace has attended in the past 20 years.

The Government of Japan's obstructive tactics were made clear by their cynical manipulation of the indigenous subsistence quota and by their manipulation of the countries they have bought.

"Vote buying by the Japanese government is making a mockery of the democratic process at the IWC. The process should be decided by one country, one vote," Page says.

Instead, Japan wields 15 votes, even though these bought countries continue to embarrass themselves by insisting they are not bought.

Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Panama continued to vote in line with Japan. Morocco uses abstentions to appear independent.

This year St Vincents and the Grenadines broke rank for the first time in two important votes, the sanctuaries vote and the vote on the Revised Management System (RMS), following a commitment by their Prime Minister to do so.

On all the key votes the four new countries Gabon, Benin, Palau and Mongolia voted with Japan as predicted. In particular, Mongolia's voting record is identical to that of Japan.

Despite this vote buying strategy, the Fisheries Agency of Japan has failed to secure any gains that would have led to a resumption of commercial whaling. But the Government of Japan will continue to carry out some commercial whaling under the dishonest title of "scientific research".

Proposals by the Government of Japan for secret ballots, which would have provided cover for vote buying and viewed by many as undemocratic, also failed.

You can support whale conservation by voting in the BBC news online poll and CNN online poll.

Help put pressure on countries bought by Japan

You can help put pressure on three of the newest countries bought by the Japanese government and ask them to stand up for whale conservation, not commercial whaling by sending a fax to these Foreign Ministers.

Mongolia is a land locked country and the latest to join the IWC. It is hard to image what there interest is in whaling except as a route to Japanese aid. Send a letter to their foreign minister.

Send a fax to the minister of Palau.

Send a fax to the minister of Benin in Africa.

Send a fax to Gabon.