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Japan to call for separate forum on whaling outside IWC
Tokyo (AFP) Jun 1, 2006 Japan will propose a separate forum to the International Whaling Commission annual meeting to try to sideline "hardliners" opposed to an end to the ban on commercial whaling, officials said Thursday. "We will make a proposal calling for a (return to the original aims) of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which is completely deadlocked, by holding a separate meeting excluding anti-whaling hardliners," said Hideki Moronuki, chief of the whaling section of Japan's Fisheries Agency. The proposal is aimed at setting up an alternative forum for discussing ways of controlling commercial whaling, rather than having an outright ban, but is not intended to completely replace the IWC, he said. "It will be a joint proposal with other pro-whaling Pacific countries," he told AFP. Moronuki did not say specifically which countries Japan hoped to exclude but noted that Australia and New Zealand were among the staunchest opponents of commercial whaling. The IWC is due to meet from June 16 in the West Indies, where Japan is expected to make a new push to legalize commercial catches, arguing that whale stocks have recovered sufficiently during the 19-year ban. Japan has heavily lobbied the Pacific nations to back their position and whaling and environmentalists have accused Tokyo of using aid to buy votes in the IWC, a charge Japan denies. While Japan may muster a simple majority at the IWC meeting, this would not be enough to overturn the current whaling ban, which would require the support of 75 percent of IWC members. "The current IWC is not functioning as an organisation to find ways to control whaling, because of a few hardline anti-whaling countries," said the Fisheries Agency official. "But many members of IWC, including some moderately anti-whaling countries, agree with us that the IWC should discuss the way to control commercial whaling so as to preserve whales as marine resources, which is the spirit of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling," he said. Japan uses a 1986 loophole in the international moratorium on commercial whaling that allows the killing of whales for research, but it makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up on dinner tables. Earlier Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sought support for Japan's position from Antigua and Barbuda's visiting Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer and said in a statement he expects support from the Caribbean island nation. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Follow the Whaling Debate
Australia frustrated in bid to woo Pacific nations to anti-whaling side
Sydney (AFP) May 31, 2006 A senior Australian delegation lobbying Pacific island nations not to back Japan's campaign to resume commercial whaling has failed to get any guarantees from the tiny states, officials said Wednesday. |
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