On the 24th May 2002 Greenpeace protest alongside the pro-whalers on the final day of the International Whaling Commission.
Vote buying by the Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ) has forced
the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to convene a special
meeting in Cambridge (UK) this Monday, said Greenpeace. The special
meeting, only the 5th in over 50 years, has been set to determine
whether the IWC can now agree to grant an aboriginal subsistence
quota to the Alskan Eskimos and Russian Chukotka peoples.
The US Eskimos and other indigenous peoples who hunt whales for
subsistance do not fall under the IWC's moratorium on commercial
whaling and quotas. These are based on scientific advice and are
usually agreed by consensus. However, at last summer's IWC meeting,
Japan tried to link the joint Russian/ US aboriginal subsistance
quota to a commercial quota for its own whalers and then used a
bloc of bought votes [1] to block the subsistence quota when its
own commercial request was not granted.
"The Fisheries Agency of Japan was clearly attempting to
blackmail the US by using the vote bought countries to block the
aboriginal quota", said Richard Page, Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner.
"They have said they will allow the quota to pass at this meeting,
but there is no guarantee that the Fisheries Agency won't employ
this tactic at future meetings."
The Fisheries Agency of Japan's (FAJ) use of development aid to
buy votes in the IWC is well documented with both senior Japanese
officials and representatives of bought countries admitting to the
practice.(1) By this means the FAJ now commands a blocking minority
within the IWC. Under the IWC's rules, a minority of over 25% can
block a quota.
"The Government of Japan is set on buying a return to commercial
whaling," said Page . " Unless action is taken to stop vote buying,
they may succeed."
Conservationists fear that the vote buying offensive may spread
into other conservation bodies. Japan has proposed that the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
should end its ban on trade in whale products and has called for a
vote at the next CITES meeting in November.
Notes: (1) "Buying A Return To Commercial Whaling", a Greenpeace briefing, April 2002. Download it at: www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/9485/0/Buying_a_Return_to_Commercial_Whaling.pdf(2) The countries voting with Japan were: Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Dominica, Gabon, Grenada, Guinea, Mongolia, Palau, Panama, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St Vincent and the Solomon Islands. Benin, Gabon, Palau and Mongolia had all joined the IWC within 2 weeks of the meeting's start. Benin and Gabon have recently received fisheries aid packages from Japan; Mongolia said that they had joined to help Japan.