Japan Offering Prostitutes to Sway Whaling Votes
Japan Offered Prostitutes to International Whaling Commission members to Sway Whaling Votes
The Sunday Times, London. - June 13, 2010
June 14 2010 - AOL NEWS - Dana Kennedy
Japanese officials filmed bribing six small nations with offers of cash and call girls in return for their votes in favor of slaughtering whales, in a British newspaper investigation: The Times, London.
Japan denies the accusations, but The Sunday Times reported that two of its journalists filmed government officials from six countries admitting they were bribed by Japan to vote with the pro-whalers.
News of the sting comes as Japan seeks to overturn a 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling at the meeting of the International Whaling Commission next week in Agadir, Morocco.
"I don't think the international legal community has come up with a term yet to describe this blatant, purchasing of small country governments by Japan. I mean, that has to go down in legal history as being at the high end of public sector extortion."
-- Former Dominica Minister of Fisheries, Atherton Martin, reported on ABC TV, 18 July 2005
"This is what Japan does, they try to advance their agenda of killing whales and killing dolphins by whatever means necessary," C.T. Ryder, president of the Maui-based Earth Foundation and one of the promoters of the Oscar-winning dolphin-slaughter documentary, "The Cove," told AOL News today.
"The problem is, our president is not doing anything. The whales, the dolphins -- they are part of what's happening with the gulf oil spill. President Obama needs to really take a stand."
Two reporters from the Sunday Times pretended to be the lobbyists of a fictional Swiss billionaire and set out to buy votes at the IWC meeting.
Officials from six countries told the undercover reporters they would consider their offer but warned them that they had to offer a better deal than what they were already getting from the Japanese.
The six countries named in the Times investigation are St. Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Ivory Coast and Guinea.
The Obama Administration has indeed supported, behind closed doors, a dangerous new proposal to overturn the global whaling ban.
On April 16, 2008 then-candidate Barack Obama promised, "As President, I will ensure the U.S. provides leadership in enforcing wildlife protection agreements, including strengthening the international ban on commercial whaling. Allowing Japan to continue commercial whaling is unacceptable."The reality is that the Japanese government has chosen to spend more money and political capital on whaling than the governments who favour protecting whales.
"Japan is now killing more whales in the Antarctic every year than it killed for scientific research in the 31 years prior to the introduction of the moratorium on commercial whaling."
... expressed "grave concerns" that the ongoing hunt, "will undermine the long-term viability," of both fin and humpback whales.
Wayne PacellePresident and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States
June 4, 2010This week, the government of Australia took a decisive step to protect whales, filing suit in the International Court of Justice against Japan's "scientific whaling" in the Southern Ocean. The suit seeks an injunction to bar Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean Whaling Sanctuary. In 2007, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an election pledge to ban whaling in the sanctuary, a 50-million-square-kilometer area surrounding the continent of Antarctica, where the IWC has banned all types of commercial whaling.
contact Obama! 
About 35,000 whales have been killed by Japan, Norway and Iceland since the moratorium was introduced. In Japan's case, the killings have been justified as "scientific research," although whale meat is eaten in dishes such as sashimi.
If all the nations present at next week's IWC meeting vote in favor of overturning the whaling moratorium, whaling nations will be able to kill 1,800 whales a year.
So-called "scientific whaling" will end, but anti-whalers fear the new quotas may open the way for a return to the widespread whaling that almost destroyed some species in the 1980s.
Those against whaling say overturning the moratorium would be the culmination of a long campaign by Japan to win support for whaling by bribing the poorest nations to vote along with them.
Japan is believed to have the backing of at least 38 of the IWC's 88 members, including three landlocked countries. It needs 66 votes, or 75 percent of the vote.
The Sunday Times said that Japanese officials bribed the countries with cash payments distributed at IWC meetings by Japanese officials who also paid their travel and hotel bills.
One official told the Times that call girls were offered when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings.
The top fisheries official for Guinea said Japan slipped his minister a "minimum" of $1,000 a day spending money in cash during IWC and other fisheries meetings.
He said three Japanese organizations were used to channel the payments to his country: the fisheries agency, the aid agency and the Overseas Fisheries Co-operation Foundation.
Tanzanian officials told the Times reporters that "good girls" were made available at the hotels for ministers and senior fisheries civil servants during all-expenses paid trips to Japan.
Japan's vote buying Background
January 8, 2009 - Greenpeace InternationalThe government of Japan has long used overseas development aid money, particularly fisheries aid, as part of its drive to gain control of the International Whaling Commission.
When, in 2006, the IWC passed the pro-whaling "St Kitts Declaration", two-thirds of the countries voting for it had received fisheries aid from Japan.
These 22 countries have together received about (US)$470 million since fiscal year 2004.
in the IWC, there is a strong link between the votes for Japan and the aid money some of the members in the IWC received.
"It is necessary to couple effectively the ODA [Overseas Development Aid] and the promotion of the IWC membership.
-- Hiroaki Kameya, reported in Minato Shinbun, 24 June, 1999In July 2001, a senior officer at the Fisheries Agency of Japan, Maseyuku Komatsu, admitted in an interview with ABC TV in Australia, that Japan uses aid as 'a major tool' gain support for the resumption of commercial whaling. "[Japan has to use the] tools of diplomatic communications and promises of overseas development aid to influence members of the International Whaling Commission".
-- Masayuki Komatsu, then senior officer at the Fisheries Agency of Japan, reported in the UK Guardian, 19 July 2001In Dominica the Minister of Fisheries, Atherton Martin, resigned when his country voted against a whale sanctuary proposal, even though the Cabinet had agreed to abstain. Later, he told reporters that successive Governments have failed to answer requests for information as to who pay's Dominica's fees at the IWC.
"I don't think the international legal community has come up with a term yet to describe this blatant, purchasing of small country governments by Japan. I mean, that has to go down in legal history as being at the high end of public sector extortion."
-- Former Dominica Minister of Fisheries, Atherton Martin, reported on ABC TV, 18 July 2005
Flights, girls and cash buy Japan whaling votes
From The Sunday Times
June 13, 2010
Revealed: Japan's bribes on whaling
A SUNDAY TIMES investigation has exposed Japan for bribing small nations with cash and prostitutes to gain their support for the mass slaughter of whales.
The undercover investigation found officials from six countries were willing to consider selling their votes on the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
The revelations come as Japan seeks to break the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling. An IWC meeting that will decide the fate of thousands of whales, including endangered species, begins this month in Morocco.
Japan denies buying the votes of IWC members. However, The Sunday Times filmed officials from pro-whaling governments admitting:
- They voted with the whalers because of the large amounts of aid from Japan. One said he was not sure if his country had any whales in its territorial waters. Others are landlocked.
- They receive cash payments in envelopes at IWC meetings from Japanese officials who pay their travel and hotel bills.
- One disclosed that call girls were offered when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings.
Barry Gardiner, an MP and former Labour biodiversity minister, said the investigation revealed "disgraceful, shady practice", which is "effectively buying votes".
The reporters, posing as representatives of a billionaire conservationist, approached officials from pro-whaling countries and offered them an aid package to change their vote.
The governments of St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Republic of Guinea and Ivory Coast all entered negotiations to sell their votes in return for aid.
The top fisheries official for Guinea said Japan usually gave his minister a "minimum" of $1,000 a day spending money in cash during IWC and other fisheries meetings.
He said three Japanese organisations were used to channel the payments to his country: the fisheries agency, the aid agency and the Overseas Fisheries Co-operation Foundation.
Japan has recruited some of the world's smallest countries on to the IWC to bolster its support. A senior fisheries official for the Marshall Islands said: "We support Japan because of what they give us."
A Kiribati fisheries official said his country's vote was determined by the "benefit" it received in aid. He, too, said Japan gave delegates expenses and spending money.
The IWC commissioner for Tanzania said "good girls" were made available at the hotels for ministers and senior fisheries civil servants during all-expenses paid trips to Japan.
From The Sunday Times
June 13, 2010
Flights, girls and cash buy Japan whaling votes
THE official from the Republic of Guinea barely batted an eyelid when the English lobbyist made a highly irregular offer over coffee in a Barcelona hotel. She wanted to buy Guinea's vote at the forthcoming International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting with an aid package.
Rather than protest at this blatant bribery, Ibrahima Sory Sylla, the national director of fisheries for Guinea, got straight on the telephone to his deputy minister. "I spoke to him [the minister] positively about your bargaining," he reported back over lunch later that day, "time is pressed ... for us to make our decision."
This was not a guarantee of success. The lobbyist had a formidable rival: the fisheries agency of Japan, which for years has been Guinea's ally on the IWC.
Sylla had already outlined the extent of Japan's generosity to Guinea in terms of the cash it paid to his minister. He predicted Japan would make a good counter offer.
Such backroom stitch-ups at the IWC have often been rumoured, but they have never before been captured on a video camera. The lobbyist was, in fact, an undercover reporter from the Sunday Times.
Our recordings of the meetings with pro-whaling officials around the world reveal the secrets of a Japanese vote-buying operation that Tokyo has always denied. It also raises serious questions about the credibility of the IWC.
It comes as Japan is attempting to break the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling with a proposal to introduce fishing quotas at the IWC meeting in Agadir, Morocco, a week tomorrow.
Japan, Norway and Iceland have killed 35,000 whales since the moratorium was introduced. In Japan's case, the killings have been justified as "scientific research" although whale meat is eaten in dishes such as sashimi.
If the Morocco proposal is successful, the whaling nations will be able to catch a total of 1,800 whales a year including two endangered species, fin and sei. Scientific whaling will be stopped but campaigners fear the new quotas may open the way for a return to the widespread whaling that almost destroyed some species in the 1980s. For Japan it is the culmination of a long campaign to win support for whaling by recruiting small impoverished nations on to the IWC.
Japan is believed to have the backing of at least 38 of the IWC's 88 members, including three landlocked countries. It needs 75% of the vote but could be helped by disunity in the European Union whose predominantly anti-whaling countries may abstain if they cannot reach a unanimous agreement.
To find out about the secret deals which patch together Japan's alliance of African, Asian, Pacific and Caribbean states, The Sunday Times approached the key ministers and fisheries officials from those countries in an undercover investigation. Two reporters posed as lobbyists who had been hired by Dr Hans Kruber, a fictional Swiss billionaire philanthropist who had created the European development fund for fisheries.
Our proposal was designed to mirror the alleged tactics of the Japanese. Government officials were told we were putting together a coalition of countries who would vote against whaling. They were each offered £25m in aid over 10 years from Kruber's fund and all they had to do was vote against the whaling quotas at the Morocco meeting.
Six countries indicated they were willing to consider our offer and went away to discuss it with senior officials and ministers. They were St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Ivory Coast and Guinea. Even more revealing were officials' revelations about their relations with Japan.
Sylla, a veteran of his fisheries department, explained his country had little interest in whales but had been persuaded to become a member of the IWC by Japan 10 years ago.
He said Guinea voted with Japan partly because of fears that whales were consuming fish, a dubious argument that is promoted by Japanese scientists.
An equally important reason for his country's support was financial. "Japan supports our position commercially," he said. He was not just referring to the millions in fisheries aid that Japan has given Guinea over the years.
The reporters asked Sylla what other payments they would have to make to match the financial assistance offered by Japan. There were several.
Japan, Sylla revealed, pays Guinea's £7,900 annual IWC membership fee as well as funding his country's attendance at the meetings. Travel, hotels and meals were all paid for and each delegate receives up to $300 a day spending money. The average annual wage in Guinea is $1,000.
On the occasions that Guinea's minister attends as the IWC commissioner, he or she is provided with a car by Japan and spending money. "Minimum, you understand minimum? Maybe one thousand [dollars] a day," Sylla said.
The cash is handed over by Japanese officials at meetings in envelopes. Sylla said that at some meetings he was given the money for the minister.
Reporter: And then you give it to the minister?
Sylla: Yes. Not straight to the minister.
Reporter: Why not?
Sylla: You know, you know, the minister is a political man.
Reporter: So they don't want it to seem like they are corrupting the minister.
Sylla: C'est ça. Exactly.
On Friday the Guinea fisheries ministry denied Japan had paid any money to its delegates and claimed Sylla was not involved in IWC matters. Sylla was briefly put on the phone to say he had made everything up.
However, a reporter who telephoned the ministry earlier to check Sylla's credentials was told he attended IWC meetings and had recently been at preparatory talks for Morocco as a stand-in IWC commissioner.
Japan's ministry of foreign affairs said: "The government of Japan does not cover any cost of any other IWC member countries related to the IWC."
However, other countries appear to have deals with Japan. Michael Bootii, deputy director for the ministry of fisheries at Kiribati, a tiny Pacific island that always votes with Japan, was also at the meeting in Barcelona.
He agreed to meet the reporters for coffee after first checking with his minister. Bootii described the reporters' offer to buy his country's vote with aid as "attractive".
He said his ministers would "weigh" the offer against the aid provided by Japan, which is building ice plants to store fish on each of Kiribati's 33 islands. The decision appeared to have little to do with whaling and was all about money. "I think we will have to see what we get. At the end of the day it's the benefit, yeah."
When asked if his ministers would use the reporters' offer as a bargaining counter with Japan, he replied: "That's what will happen."
He, too, confirmed that Japan pays for hotels, business class flights, subsistence and even a "transit allowance" for his country's delegates at the IWC. They had already offered to pay for Kiribati's IWC commissioner at Morocco.
Despite Japan's denials, Bootii confirmed on Friday, after being confronted by The Sunday Times, that it did fund his delegation during IWC trips. "Assistance given to Kiribati by Japan are part of Japanese aid and ongoing support to Kiribati and this includes the cost of the trip to any overseas conference," he wrote in an email. During the meeting he went further, stating that most of the Pacific islands IWC members were financed by the Japanese. In particular he named Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.
The reporters had dined with Panapasi Nelsone, Tuvalu's IWC commissioner, in London a few weeks earlier. Nelsone said his country's pro-whaling stance had not been linked to the £10m a year it receives in aid fisheries from Japan. But when it came to paying for his IWC trips, he was quite clear: "If Japan wants us to vote on an issue similar to our position, like sustainable use, then why can't they pay for me? ... If you want us to vote for you, you have to help me to attend that meeting."
Doreen de Brum, the chief fishing policy adviser to the Marshall Islands, was the next official to meet the reporters. She seemed keen on taking up the reporters' offer of aid to switch the vote.
Reporter: Do you think ... that would create a problem with Japan and maybe cease their funding?
De Brum: I don't know, seriously, but I think that's why we do have the position that we have. It is because of that aid.
Reporter: What, you support whaling because of the aid that Japan gives you?
De Brum: Yeah. We support Japan because of what they give us.
She went on say that the other Pacific islands also supported Japan's whaling position because of the money they received. "Aid, the aid, that's it," she said.
After being told of The Sunday Times undercover investigation on Friday, she returned to the customary public line of the Pacific islands pro-whalers. "The Marshall Islands' policy on whaling is not decided based on the aid Japan or any other country provides," she wrote.
Another bloc of pro-whaling countries are the east Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent, Antigua, Barbuda and the Grenadines.
St Kitts and Nevis, one of the world's smallest countries, has a population of 50,000. The former British colony depends heavily on aid as its sugar industry has collapsed.
Timothy Harris, the country's marine resources minister who is also its IWC commissioner, was only too keen to discuss the undercover reporters' proposal. The first meeting took place in the cramped government offices in Basseterre, the island's capital. With a senior civil servant taking notes, Harris explained that Japan provided finance for a number of fish-related infrastructure projects and was paying for a new fish market in Nevis. He promised to raise the reporters' offer to buy St Kitts's vote with the cabinet but added there might be concern that Japan could pull the plug on its aid if St Kitts switched sides.
Harris: "Right now we are working on a project for a new complex ... so if you were to do something, we'd want to ensure that is not jeopardised.
Reporter: Not jeopardised. Why?
Harris: It's being funded by Japan.
Shortly after the meeting, Harris rang the reporters and invited them to lunch. Over conch balls in a restaurant overlooking the beach, he was far more candid. In front of his civil servant earlier he had taken the customary Japanese line that whales were eating "significant proportions" of St Kitts's fish stocks. Now he admitted this was unlikely: "I'm not sure that we have whales, or at least many."
The St Kitts interest in the whaling issue was "minimal" but it participated in the IWC because it could have "direct benefits" and also out of solidarity for St Vincent which still allows a small amount of indigenous whaling.
Harris said he had been selected to speak on behalf of his fellow east Caribbeans at a crucial meeting in Grenada last month with Japan's IWC commissioner and ambassador. He said the islands were angry because they were suffering "reputational damage" by supporting Japan's pro-whaling stance. Harris was asked to argue that the Japanese should come up with a proposal for compensation ahead of the Morocco vote. The islands wanted Japan to fund wider development projects rather than just fisheries.
Reporter: And were they [the islands] threatening not to support Japan in the IWC vote?
Harris: No, they didn't put it as that, because I don't think it might have been diplomatic to say. But if you say to a country or some partner this is matter that is important to me ... and they consistently refuse to help you, then they are leaving you with no choice.
Harris had promised to debate the reporters' proposal in cabinet and was planning to stop off in London this week to discuss the offer further.
Similarly, Grenada was last week considering the reporters' offer following a meeting with Michael Lett, fisheries minister and IWC commissioner, and Daniel Lewis, the chief agriculture officer. Later Lewis wrote in an email: "I am glad that your coalition has considered Grenada as a potential recipient of the aid offer."
In Africa, the Ivory Coast appeared to be interested in the reporters' offer and was mulling it over last week.
Seydou Coulibaly, Mali's fisheries minister, was not as keen because he said that whales were threatening his country's food supplies by eating so many fish. Quite how this could be so is a mystery: Mali is landlocked.
There was little question that Tanzania would change its traditional loyalty to Japan. Over dinner in Barcelona, Geoffrey Nanyaro, its IWC commissioner, explained that five of the seven key people in his fisheries department spoke Japanese because they were educated there. He said Japan paid fisheries officials £22,000 a year in tuition fees and living costs while they studied there. In addition, he said Japan had given his country £80m in fisheries aid in the past two years.
Nanyaro said aid given to Tanzania was not linked to the whaling vote, but he feared the country might lose the funding if it voted against the Japanese. However, he believed other African pro-whaling countries were more directly influenced. Reporter: What do the Japanese do for them [the other African countries] that keeps them in their pockets?
Nanyaro: It is aid.
He said that Japan "secretively" paid the tickets and hotels for the IWC delegates from different countries. They were also, he claimed, taken on all-expenses-paid visits to Japan where "good girls" would be available. He always turned them down.
Reporter: So you think the other countries' representatives are set up with prostitutes from Japan?
Nanyaro: Yes, you know, yeah ... It starts by saying: do you want massaging? ... It's going to be free massaging. Are you not lonely? You don't want any comfort?"
Hunting myths
Pro-whaling nations have perpetuated myths to justify their killing:
Whales eat too many fish Some scientists say whales reduce fish stocks, leaving less for humans. Japan has even suggested that whales consume six times the world's commercial fish catch.
Other researchers say this is nonsense. The seas were teeming with both fish and whales for millennia - until humans came along. The key change was the arrival of steam power, which allowed trawlers to plunder the oceans.
Whaling is humane Whalers say they use explosive harpoons to kill the animals "quickly", but the International Whaling Commission estimates that death takes an average of 14 minutes if harpooned accurately - and potentially hours if not.
Whales that do not die immediately are supposed to be shot with rifles. However, Greenpeace campaigners who have witnessed such incidents say some creatures are dragged backwards until they drown.
Whaling has a cultural heritage Japan, Norway and Iceland have a long history of small-scale coastal whaling (as did Britain), but this is a far cry from the modern industrialised version. A Greenpeace-commissioned opinion poll in 2006 found that 69% of Japan's population was against whaling and only 5% ate whale meat.
the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW)
the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
By 1925, the League of Nations recognized that whales were over-exploited [being killed to extinction] and that there was a need to regulate whaling activities. In 1930, the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics was set up in order to keep track of catches. This was followed by the first international regulatory agreement, the Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which was signed by 22 nations in 1931. However, some of the major whaling nations, including Germany and Japan, did not join and 43,000 whales were killed that same year.
With species after species of the great whales being hunted close to extinction, various nations met throughout the 1930s attempting to bring order to the industry. Finally, in 1948 the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) came into force. The Preamble states that "Recognising the interest of the nations of the world in safeguarding for future generations the great natural resources represented by the whale stocks ... having decided to conclude a convention to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry". The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established as its decision-making body, originally with 14 member states. The IWC meets annually and adopts regulations on catch limits, whaling methods and protected areas, on the basis of a three-quarters majority vote. In recent years the IWC, recognizing new threats to whales, has moved towards a broader conservation agenda
For the first 15 years of its existence the IWC acted as a "whalers club" and imposed hardly any effective restrictions on whaling. Catch limits were set far too high and, since the IWC lacks a compliance and enforcement programme, were often exceeded. These management shortfalls resulted in the continued depletion of species after species. In particular, huge declines occurred in the Antarctic, where in the 1961/62 season, the peak was reached with over 66,000 whales killed. By then however it was becoming increasingly hard for the whalers to find enough whales to kill. From a pre-whaling population of about 250,000 blue whales in the Southern Hemisphere, there are now estimated to be fewer than 1,500 remaining.
Also in 1961, WWF was founded and accepted the challenge of reversing the declines in whale populations. 'Save the whales' campaigns spread around the world, promoting calls for whale sanctuaries and a moratorium on commercial whaling (most notably by the UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972). Instead of implementing a moratorium, in 1974 the IWC adopted a New Management Procedure (NMP), designed to set quotas on the grounds of scientific assessments and sustainability. However, the NMP was not precautionary at all; it depended on having much more information on whale stocks than was available, quotas were still set too high, compliance was still lacking, and whale populations continued to decline.
At the 1979 IWC meeting, a moratorium on all whaling using factory ships (with an exception for minke whales) was agreed. The IWC also declared the entire Indian Ocean as a whale sanctuary. From then on, successful non-lethal whale research took place in that area (some of it funded by WWF). However, it was also revealed that the USSR had been falsifying reported numbers and species were being caught on a massive scale, with the meat being sold to Japan. Conservation concerns expressed by scientists, WWF and other conservation organizations and conservation-minded governments grew deeper.
THE CURRENT SITUATION IN THE IWC
Over recent decades, the IWC has taken some encouraging steps in changing its emphasis towards conserving and studying whales, most recently in 2003 with the establishment of a Conservation Committee. However, the whaling nations of Japan, Norway and Iceland retain politically influential whaling industries that wish to carry on whaling on as large a scale as possible. All three countries are exploiting loopholes in the Whaling Convention in order to kill nearly 2000 whales each year in spite of the IWC’s moratorium on whaling. Norway hunts whales under its objection to the moratorium, and Japan has been whaling under the guise of "scientific research" (see WWF document "Irresponsible Science, Irresponsible Whaling). Most recently, Iceland joined the IWC with a formal objection to the moratorium in 2002 and, although claiming they would not undertake commercial whaling before 2006, immediately began a "scientific whaling" program. It added to its scientific quota by commencing commercial whaling in 2006, aiming to take 30 minke whales and 9 fin whales each year. The current membership of the IWC is approximately evenly divided between whaling and non-whaling nations, resulting in a political deadlock which makes it impossible to secure the 3⁄4 majority of votes needed to make major changes. All in all, whaling is taking place and increasing yearly without any international control.
THE COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT
The main duty of the IWC is to keep under review and revise as necessary the measures laid down in the Schedule to the Convention which govern the conduct of whaling throughout the world. These measures, among other things, provide for the complete protection of certain species; designate specified areas as whale sanctuaries; set limits on the numbers and size of whales which may be taken; prescribe open and closed seasons and areas for whaling; and prohibit the capture of suckling calves and female whales accompanied by calves. The compilation of catch reports and other statistical and biological records is also required.
In addition, the Commission encourages, co-ordinates and funds whale research, publishes the results of scientific research and promotes studies into related matters such as the humaneness of the killing operations.
When, at its 1982 meeting, the IWC agreed to a pause in commercial whaling (or to use popular terminology, a 'moratorium') from 1986, the amendment to the regulations included a clause that 'the Commission will undertake a 'comprehensive assessment' of the effects of this decision on whale stocks and consider modification of this provision and the establishment of other catch limits'.
The pause in commercial whaling does not affect aboriginal subsistence whaling which is permitted from Denmark (Greenland, fin and minke whales), the Russian Federation (Siberia, gray whales), St Vincent and The Grenadines (humpback whales), and the USA (Alaska, bowhead and occasionally off Washington, gray whales).
SANCTUARIES
The first (pre) IWC sanctuary was established in the Antarctic in 1938. The original reason for this was that in this sector there had been no whaling, and it was thought highly desirable that the immunity which whales in this area had enjoyed should be maintained.
The Indian Ocean Sanctuary was established by the IWC in 1979, as an area where commercial whaling is prohibited. The Indian Ocean Sanctuary was initially established for 10 years and its duration has since been extended twice.
At the 46th (1994) Annual Meeting the IWC adopted the Southern Ocean Sanctuary as another area in which commercial whaling is prohibited.
At the 54th meeting in 2002 the Scientific Committee established a Working Group to review existing IWC sanctuaries and sanctuary proposals and carried out a review of the Indian Ocean Sanctuary. After extensive discussions within the Committee ... the Commission agreed to continue the IWC sanctuaries.
Two additional proposals for the establishment of sanctuaries in the South Atlantic and South Pacific have been submitted to the Commission for a number of years. To date, both have failed to achieve the three-quarters majority of votes needed to change the Schedule and become designated IWC Sanctuaries.
