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The 1982 decision to implement a
general moratorium on all commercial whaling is the basis of the contentious situation,
that runs the risk of self-destructing the IWC. The moritorium has been in effect since
1986. On several occasions, in the years before
1982, the Scientific Committee of the IWC advised against a blanket moratorium and
emphasised that prudent management requires regulation of individual stocks.
In 1982, the conflict level within the Scientific
Committee was so high that it could not discuss the content of any paper. Some members
recommended a blanket moratorium while others repeated the need for managing stocks
individually.
Since 1972 several proposals to adopt a general moratorium
were put forward to the IWC but they failed to achieve the necessary three-quarters
majority.
Until the 1970s, the number of IWC-members was fairly
stable at about 14-16, but increased to 39 in just a few years. In the period 1979 to
1982, 19 new states joined the IWC. The new members were the Seychelles, Oman,
Switzerland, China, Costa Rica, Dominica, India, Jamaica, the Philippines, St. Lucia, St.
Vincent and the Grenadines, Uruguay, Antigua, Belize, Egypt, Kenya, Monaco, Senegal and
West Germany.
As many as ten states attended their first IWC-meeting in
1982.
This influx of new members made it possible to achieve the
necessary majority for the moratorium, which was adopted with 25 votes in favour, 7
against and 5 abstentions.
The Seychelles played a key role in bringing about the
decision to introduce the moratorium, and the proposal for the moratorium was put forward
by that country. The country’s delegation included Sidney Holt, a central figure in
the Save-the-Whale movement. He was chairman of Greenpeace UK for a short period, and has
been employed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) for the past ten years.
Together with the director of Greenpeace International, David McTaggart, he played a
central role in efforts to recruit new member states to the IWC (1);(2).
"The whale savers targeted poor
nations plus some small newly independent ones like Antigua and St. Lucia. They drafted
the required membership documents for submission to the U.S. State Department. ... (T)he
operation added at least a dozen new member countries to the commission's membership"
(2).
"Conservationists
began to lobby symphatetic countries and draft them into the IWC fold. The money for those
countries' IWC fees, and support for their delegations, often came from private funds as
politically astute conservationists sought to change the IWC from within. The goal was to
create a three-quarter majority of anti-whaling nations" (3).
Greenpeace
compared this process with a coup d'etat; "environmental and animal welfare
groups (...) carried out what amounted to a coup d'etat in the International Whaling
Commission" (4).
In addition to efforts to change the member structure,
efforts were also invested in the Scientific Committee. David Day, who is a strong
anti-whaler, claims that "[i]nside the IWC, conservationists were at work within the
commission's primary defence system: its Scientific Committee. (...) The presence of the
IWC Scientific Committee scientists not dependent on the whaling industry itself for
employment was of major importance in the war" (1).
The South-African scientist, Dr. Butterworth, says that
the conflict within the Scientific Committee was caused by a hidden agenda to end all
whaling based on an animal rights philosophy: "The terms of the convention have
required that this debate be conducted in a scientific guise, so that these hidden agendas
have had to be played out in the scientific committee." (5)
When the Scientific Committee was unable to agree on
various whale estimates this indicated a high degree of uncertainty. Employing the
precautionary approach, this uncertainty furnished the IWC-commissioners with a
justification for voting in favor of the whaling moratorium.
The moratorium was supposed to be temporary, from 1986 to
1990. The actual decision says: "This provision will be kept under review, based upon
the best scientific advice, and by 1990 at the latest 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."
It was largely due to this wording that Iceland decided
not to lodge an objection to the decision. Iceland assumed that the moratorium would be
reassessed by 1990, and that quotas would then be set on on the basis of new, more
reliable information on whale stocks. This did not happen and Iceland left the IWC in 1992
in protest.
Norway, the former Soviet Union, Peru and Japan lodged
reservations to the moratorium, i.e. they are exempted from it. The latter two countries
have since withdrawn their reservations.
In 1983, the Scientific Committee established a working
group to prepare the comprehensive assessments and to make improvements of the existing
New Management Procedure (NMP). This became the Revised Management Procedure (RMP).
In 1990, the Scientific Committee presented comprehensive
assessments of the Antarctic minke whale population, and two minke whale stocks in the
North Atlantic. The Antarctic minke population is estimated to be 760,000. Since the RMP
had not been completed, the IWC refused to set quotas based on these comprehensive
assessments.
In 1991, the Scientific Committee made a point estimate of
68,447 minke whales in the North-East Atlantic stock. Much of the Norwegian hunt is
conducted within this stock. The RMP was still not finished so the Commission refused to
set any quota.
In 1992, the Scientific Committee reached a unanimous
assessment that estimated the North-East Atlantic minke whale stock to be 86,700. Again,
the IWC did not set a quota.
Based on this new estimate, Norway announced that
commercial harvesting of minke whales would resume in 1993.
In 1996, the Scientific Committee estimated the North-East
Atlantic minke whale stock at 112,000. This estimate is based on a line transect survey
carried out in 1995 using methodology previously approved by the Scientific Committee.
As of the year 2000, the moratorium is still in force. Talks are
continued on the RMP, the RMS, and more recently the Irish Proposal, but without
significant progress. Since the moratorium came into force Norway has caught more than
3.000 minke whales, and has this year set a quota of 655 animals.
Further reading:
Sources:
(1) David Day, The Whale War, 1992 (and 1987, first
edition).
(2) Leslie Spencer (with Jan Bollwerk and Richard D.
Morais), "The not so peaceful world of Greenpeace", in Forbes, November11, 1991.
(3) Jeremy Cherfas, The Hunting of the Whale: A tragedy
that must end, 1988.
(4) Dean M. Wilkinson, "The use of domestic measures
to enforce international whaling agreements: A critical perspective", in Denver
Journal of International Law and Policy, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 271-91, 1989.
(5) Douglas Butterworth, "Science and
sentimentality", in Nature, vol. 357, pp. 532-4, 1992.
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