Contents

1. Introduction
2. Japan's attempt to ´normalize´the IWC
3. The Pew Whale Symposia
4. The Gordian Knot
5. Normalizing VS. Modernizing
6. Conclusion

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4. The Gordian knot

The current state of the controversy on whale conservation, at its most simple, can be summarized as follows:

There is a significant group of countries, currently holding a majority of the votes at the IWC, who supports the continuation of the moratorium on commercial whaling as a necessary and legitimate decision under international law, entirely compatible with the principle of science-based policy and rule making.  This group of countries believes that conservation and management of whales must take account of all uses, including non-lethal uses (such as whale watching) which may be fundamentally compromised by lethal ones.  It must also take account of all potential impacts on whale populations, not just directed kills.  According to this school of thought, the potential impacts of climate change, changes in marine ecosystems due to overfishing, noise pollution and ship strikes due to the increase of commercial, military and recreational maritime activities, fishing gear entanglement, the concentration of persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals in the food chain, and other such threats compound the impacts from hunting.

Opposed to this view, the group of countries opposing the continuation of the moratorium on commercial whaling (currently in the minority within the IWC) argues that the moratorium by definition was meant to be a temporary measure and that whaling should be allowed to resume because certain whale populations are showing signs of recovery, and others according to them are not endangered. They also say that commercial whaling and whale watching are not mutually exclusive.

As noted previously, certain countries have circumvented the moratorium for many years in various ways, including reservations to the moratorium (ICRW Art. V) and the development of lethal whale research programs (ICRW Art. VIII). The situation whereby the catch of whales is taking place with no international control undermines the authority of the IWC, and it is likely to continue unless something is done about it.

The question of whale conservation raises many ethical issues, including whether whales should be primarily considered as food, or whether they have special qualities (including intelligence, social behaviour, etc.) that give them an intrinsic value to be cherished and preserved, above any economic considerations. Does any group of countries have a right to impose its values on others, especially with regard to culinary habits?  Who, if anyone, has a right to ownership of whales, the majority of which live in international or transboundary waters, and to kill those whales, removing them from use by others such as through whale-watching? What level of resilience should the IWC strive for? Can we at any given point consider that a species or population has sufficiently recovered from past overexploitation, bearing in mind that it is (at least in most cases) impossible to determine if and when whale populations have recovered to their original, pre-exploitation levels?  What about fairness and double-standards which some believe are being applied? For example, some consider that differentiating aboriginal subsistence whaling from commercial whaling reflects a patronizing or even a racist attitude while others say that, on the contrary, this is motivated by a desire to avoid discrimination and to respect indigenous peoples.  And what about animalwelfare considerations? And inter-generational rights and obligations, including the price that future generations will pay for mismanagement by past and present generations? These are all valid questions which can find quite opposite answers, depending on which side of the fence you stand, hence the question: can and should the fence be eliminated?

At the cross-road of ethics and fisheries management also lies the question of whether it would be acceptable to cull whales in order to attempt to increase fisheries yields.  For example, in a memorandum informally distributed in the margins of the 60th Annual Meeting of the IWC in Santiago, Chile, the Japanese delegation argued for “the possible reduction of cetacean populations as part of ecosystem management aimed at increasing yields from other fisheries”. However, more recently, the 4th World Conservation Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) held in Barcelona in October 2008 “acknowledged that the great whales play no significant role in the current crisis affecting global fisheries” (See IUCN).

Whether the right to hunt whales or the obligation to protect them will prevail in the end, and how the balance will be drawn, are still open questions. What is clear though is that a solution will not be achieved by imposition but only by persuasion.