2004 International Whaling Commission report

The 2004 International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting took place in Sorrento, Italy, a small resort town on the west coast of the Italian peninsula. The meetings were held at the Hilton Sorrento Palace, a cliff-hugging hotel perched high above the town center, the ominous silhouette of Mt. Vesuvius looming a few kilometers across the Bay of Naples.

As always, the Scientific Committee met prior to the Plenary (full) session, as did various sub-groups (including Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling, Conservation, Infractions, and Budgetary, Finance & Administration), all of which then presented their respective reports to the Plenary when all countries' commissioners were present. As ACS's representative at this year's meeting, I spent 12 days in Sorrento, attending all the sub-group meetings that allowed NGO (non-governmental organization) observers, and participating in various ad hoc NGO and strategy meetings including the newly formed International Coalition on Ocean Noise. This year's vote-eligible membership consisted of 27 anti-whaling countries, 25 pro-whaling countries, and 2 countries whose votes "swing" between the two. Please see the resolutions table for the breakdown of how each issue was voted and how narrow a majority the anti-whaling countries had this year.

The Plenary session began without either its duly elected Chair or Vice-Chair. Denmark's Henrik Fischer, elected Chair last year, was absent due to health reasons and Vice-Chair, Spain's Carlos Dominguez, was unable to attend due to recent changes in his government. The first order of business was to introduce the temporary Chair and Vice-Chair, who had been agreed upon in an earlier commissioner's meeting. US Commissioner Rolland Schmitten was Chair and Japan's Commissioner Minoru Morimoto was Vice-Chair, embodying the polarization within the IWC itself. Because of the selection of the US Commissioner as this meeting’s Chair, Dr. William Hogarth, NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, was brought in to serve as the acting US Commissioner. Dr. Michael Tillman, a long-time IWC Commissioner and Alternate Commissioner on the US Delegation, served as a consultant, having retired from NOAA the previous year.

The preliminaries to getting down to business were painfully familiar: arguments over the adoption of the agenda, the agenda's content, the order of the items on the agenda, and the perennial insistence by the pro-whaling nations to adopt secret ballots for all business at the IWC. Like last year, Japan and its subsidized voting bloc were furious over a pre-Plenary press packet compiled and distributed by several NGOs about vote-buying at the IWC. Also, as happened last year, this immediately brought the Commission to a halt while a commissioners-only meeting was held to determine what should be done about NGOs that are calling the world's attention to Japan’s actions: undermining the integrity of the IWC by enticing countries to join with sympathetic votes in exchange for "development aid." There were no outright calls for expulsion of those NGOs, but later in the week, after more commissioners-only meetings, Chair Schmitten read a statement that the IWC intends to introduce a code of conduct for NGOs at next year’s meeting. This code may include penalties as severe as an NGO losing its credentials to attend the IWC. Vote-buying is not a new phenomenon in any forum. However, several experts in international treaty law characterized Japan's efforts as "treaty busting," and stated that never in the history of international treaties has one country made such a concerted effort to hijack a multi-lateral agreement over such a long period of time.

Despite all of the initial turmoil at the meeting, Japan had fewer outbursts this year and was even joking to the point of flippancy with the Chair in deferring to the Chair's judgement, one time going so far as to say, "I always do what the Chair wants." It was a curious performance by a delegation known for its defiance. The joviality was soon explained. After a lengthy and contentious discussion of Japan's proposal to allow Alternate Commissioners to be elected as Commission Chair or Vice-Chair (now, only Commissioners can hold these positions), Japan withdrew its proposal saying it would bring it up next year, "when we have a majority."

It was a sad day indeed when another country's Commissioner said that "the US used to be the leader of the like-minded [anti-whaling] at the IWC" and that "if the US doesn't take the lead on some of these issues, Japan will eventually win." Unfortunately for those of us in the United States -- and even more unfortunately for the whales -- the current Administration, speaking through a State Department member of the US Delegation, stated this year that insofar as its priorities are concerned, "…whales are not on the radar."  More