Whale hunt
soon to resume?

     The international whaling commission is a world wide organization responsible for formulating regulations on whaling. The commission deals with issues surrounding aboriginal subsistence hunting and what purports to be the killing of whales for the purposes of scientific research, and it turns out that at times these two aspects of policy can be treated as loopholes by the pro-whaling block in the IWC, including most notably the countries of Japan and Norway. Apparently Japan has been paying certain small and poor islands nations to vote for pro-whaling resolutions in the organization, financing the membership of Guinea, for example, which has just recently joined the organization and votes, as can be expected, pro-whaling. This practice that subverts any pretence of objectivity in the organization, and the consequently the body has been drafting regulations designed to govern the practice of whaling when the international whale hunt resumes. Norway has been hunting whales in defiance of the ban on whale hunting that has been in place since 1982 and Japan has been conducting what they refer to as 'scientific research' and under this pretence has continued the practice issuing commercial permits for the of hunting whales and selling whale meat, and even attempted to get the organization to pass regulations allowing Japan to harpoon whales for 'scientific study' in the areas declared whale sanctuaries. The resolution was soundly defeated, not that this has ever stopped Japan before, as they normally ignore inconvenient resolutions in any case. As for their stacking of the deck, this does not seem to be a practice that Japan requires for any other reason than propaganda purposes, as they hunt whales in defiance of the rules and regulations. The latest ruse of bribing poor nations, like Grenada and other nations of the Carribean, to encourage them to vote for the whale hunt would appear to be a simple propaganda ploy on the part of Japan and a way of deflecting the heat and any bad publicity generated by Japan's commercial whaling policies. The membership of the organization has become tilted in recent recent years by the resignation of countries opposed to whaling and the recent efforts of Japan to rig the votes have resulted in a body that is presently almost evenly divided between those who oppose resumption of the whale hunt and those who want to return to a managed 'whale harvest.' The balance has been titlting towards a resumption of the hunt and now the organization has resolutions on the table which favor placing pro-whaling regulations on the fast track.

     There remains considerable controversy over the aboriginal hunt and its possible effects on the stocks of certain critically endangered species of whales, such as the Artic Bowhead whale. Anti-whaling activists from among the aboriginal communities have appeared before the Whaling commission recently, and vow to return. The issue is clouded by the practice of nations using regulations targeting traditional whale hunting practices by aboriginal populations to harvest whales for commercial sale, even for such products as dog and cat food.

     When the International Whaling Commission was established earlier this century, its membership consisted entirely of whaling nations, and it was the earlier pro-whaling policies of the organization that have been responsible for the critical decline in numbers we currently see in the world's whale populations. When the situation came close to being a total disaster, a world wide ban on whaling was declared in 1982, but certain nations like Norway and Japan have always flagrantly flouted the ban (in Japan's case using pseudo-arguments, insisting on the need to commerically hunt whales for 'scienctific research' and so on.)