Vote Nay on Whaling

In order to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was created back in 1946. And, in 1986 the Commission banned commercial whaling by adopting a moratorium worldwide.

The IWC continues to meet each year to vote on the conditions for the moratorium. Year after year, the fate of the world’s whales is put into the hands of the more than 70 nations who are members of the IWC. 

While the majority of nations vote to continue the moratorium on whaling, many of the pro-whaling nations, like Japan, lobby heavily to persuade others to vote against the moratorium.

Japan’s lobbying has bought the votes of many Caribbean countries. Japan uses generous fisheries aid packages to entice small, cash-strapped nations to support them. Japan’s pro-whaling allies in the Eastern Caribbean countries are: Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Kitts and Nevis. 

But, recently the Commonwealth of Dominica has come out and announced they will no longer be supporting Japan’s agenda of reestablishing commercial whaling.

Changing Tide

For many years The Commonwealth of Dominica has been a staunch ally of Japan at the International Whaling Commission annual meetings, voting with Japan in support of restarting commercial whaling. 

But in 2008 Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit announced, "This year the Cabinet took a decision that Dominica shall abstain on the issue of commercial whaling; we are breaking a trend that we have maintained for a number of years," adding that the decision to change the island's pattern of voting was in the best interest of the country. 

He kept his promise - Dominica did not attend the 2008 meeting of the IWC. In March 2009, speaking in Dominica's capital, Roseau, at the International Ocean Life Symposium, the Prime Minister reconfirmed that his government would no longer be supporting the whale-killing position of the Japanese government in the IWC. He said that his government would be acting in his country's "national interest."
 
This makes Dominica the only East Caribbean IWC member country that does not support Japan's drive to resume commercial whaling.