|
Tokyo Symposium Chairman's Summary available Pew Whale Symposium Secretariat One hundred participants from 28 nationalities met at the Headquarters of the UN University in Tokyo for a two-day symposium aimed at generating good will and a positive climate to help resolve the ongoing controversy surrounding the future of the IWC. The Pew Whale Symposium came at a time of heightened international tensions related to Japan’s so-called scientific whaling program and amid growing concern over the future of the IWC. The Tokyo deliberations also assumed particular significance in the light of its fortuitous timing, five weeks before the intersessional meeting of the IWC in March. Judge Tuiloma Neroni Slade, former Presiding Judge of the International Criminal Court and previously Ambassador of Samoa to the United Nations, chaired the Pew Whale Symposium, which brought together government officials, environmentalists, policy makers, scientists and others from around the world. “All participants in the symposium were provided the opportunity to see and to comment on the first draft of this Chairman’s Summary”, says Judge Neroni Slade at the beginning of the Summary.” I acknowledge and am grateful to those participants who contributed with their thoughts and observations which provided many different viewpoints. While all contributions were carefully considered and in some respect reflected herein, I would emphasize that this document is a Chairman’s summary of the symposium proceedings and reflecting the chairman’s viewpoint; it is not (and does not purport to be) an endorsed or consensus document. “The Tokyo Symposium was designed to seek a way forward and away from the impasse that dominates the work of the IWC. We invited participants to engage in an open and constructive dialogue that would inform and broaden perspectives, and to do so with real understanding,” said Judge Slade. “Ultimately, it is that degree of understanding that will produce the ability and confidence for all parties to face up to the realities of feasible alternatives and, hopefully, to find solutions.” In his Summary, Judge Slade also says: “In Tokyo we heard of recent data on the increase and recovery, in some cases, of certain whale species and stocks. These encouraging signs allow us all to measure the success of a series of protection decisions culminating in the 1982 decision to set all commercial whaling catch limits to zero: the so-called moratorium on commercial whaling. Now that 26 years (an entire generation) have passed since the moratorium’s adoption […] I believe there is a measure of global imperative in recognizing that the moratorium has had a critical and positive effect on the world’s whale populations. More especially I should like to put forward the view that all IWC member States without exception, and regardless of the quarrels of the past, might consider recognition of this fact and of a situation that is already now widely, if not overwhelmingly, acknowledged. Implementation of the moratorium drastically reduced the number of whales caught and the number of whaling countries. This recognition based on the facts which we heard in Tokyo about the on-going increase and recovery of certain whale species and stocks, would help all stakeholders to look forward to the future and not back to the past. In this context, it seems to me that all IWC members might wish to consider individually and collectively that if they decide at some point in the future that any level of catch may someday be determined by the IWC (based on a precautionary, long-term management procedure that has been fully and rigorously tested), this should be considered a limited exception to the moratorium, and not a substitute or replacement for it.” The final summary report of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin team is also available in English and in Japanese. The Pew Symposium Secretariat can be reached at: whales@pewtrusts.org This is the Second post-symposium announcement Click here for the Sixth Announcement |
Chairperson Secretariat
Whales in the Media
Read the Symposia Bulletin
ENB online reporting of the Tokyo Whale Symposium (English Version | 日本語版) Click here for ENB online reporting of the NY Whale Symposium.
|
