I’ve lost
count of the times that Japan has
threatened to leave the International
Whaling Commission (IWC) and bribery allegations seem to have been floating
around forever.
However, it
appears the Government of Japan is not satisfied with results to date
and now want to see IWC voting rules changed so that it won’t take as many
threats and
bribes to get its way and recommence large-scale commercial whaling.
Japan is set to propose
resuming commercial whaling of some species at a
meeting of the International
Whaling Commission in September as a ruling
party endorsed the government plan
on Tuesday.
Tokyo is targeting
certain types of whales whose numbers are relatively
abundant such as minke
whales for the proposal, but it remains uncertain
whether it can secure support
from members of the IWC that are split over
whaling.
Tuesday's approval by
the Liberal Democratic Party came amid emerging
calls from some government
officials and ruling party lawmakers that Japan
should weigh withdrawal from
the IWC.
Their criticism is
directed at the divisive and what they see as dysfunctional
nature of the
international body, with one ruling party source saying, "We
are not going
to drag this out."
At the meeting from
Sept. 10 to 14 in Brazil, to be chaired by Japanese
government representative
Joji Morishita, Japan plans to make a packaged
proposal that also calls for
easing of the IWC's decision-making rules, a plan
seen as a tactic to court
anti-whaling members.
Currently, approval from
a majority of three-fourths of IWC members is
needed to set a catch quota or a
sanctuary where whaling is banned.
The Japanese proposal is to lower the hurdle
to a simple majority.
The potential easing of
the rules will make it easier for anti-whaling members
to secure support for
designating a new whale sanctuary.
Of the IWC's 88 members,
40 support whaling while the remaining 48 are
against the practice, according
to Japan's Fisheries Agency.
The IWC, which aims to
manage whaling and conserve whales, was
established in 1948. In 1982, it
declared there should be a moratorium on
commercial whaling and the ban came
into force in 1986.
Japan stopped commercial
whaling across the board in fiscal 1988. But it
continues to hunt whales for
"research purposes," drawing criticism
overseas that the practice is
a cover for commercial whaling.
At September's meeting
in Brazil, Japan "will propose setting a catch
quota for species whose
stocks are recognised as healthy by the IWC
scientific committee", Hideki
Moronuki, an official in charge of whaling at
Japan's fisheries agency, told
AFP.
Moronuki said the
proposal would not specify which whale species and
how many
mammals Japan wants to hunt, but he said the IWC classifies
several species as
no longer depleted.
The moratorium has been
in place since 1986, and Japan's previous
attempts to win a partial lifting
have been unsuccessful.
Japan will also propose
measures to change the body's decision-making
process, lowering the threshold
for proposals to pass from three quarters
of members to half.
"The IWC has not
been functioning. We should get united to build a more
cooperative
system," Moronuki said.
Tokyo has continued to
hunt whales despite the moratorium, exploiting a
loophole allowing
"scientific research". It says the research is necessary to
prove whale populations are
large enough to sustain a return to commercial
hunting.
It makes no secret of
the fact that meat from the expeditions ends up on dinner tables, despite a
significant decline in the popularity of whale meat.
Whales were a key
protein source in the immediate post-World War II years,
when the country was
desperately poor, but most Japanese now say they
rarely or never eat whale.
But foreign pressure on
Japan to stop whaling has hardened the positions
of conservative activists and
politicians.
Japan cancelled its
2014-2015 hunt after the International Court of Justice
said permits being
issued by Tokyo were "not for purposes of scientific
research".
But it resumed the hunts
in 2016, and conservationists were furious this
year after Japan reported it
had caught 333 minkes on its latest expedition,
122 of which were pregnant.
Japanese officials said
the high rate of pregnant whales showed the strength
of the minke population.
Japan's last bid to ease
the restrictions was in 2014, when the IWC voted
down its request to hunt
17 minke whales in
its coastal waters—where
smaller whales which Japan claims are not regulated by
the committee are
already hunted.
