Endangered Species

• Author: International Law Group

During the 57th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) June 20-24, 2005 in Ulsan, Republic of Korea, Japan and other pro-whaling nations lost several important votes.

Japan mainly called for allowing its northern coastal communities to resume limited hunts of Minke whales. The Commission members voted down this bid in a 29-26 vote, far short of the three-fourths requirement needed under IWC rules.

The Japanese government has long maintained the view that whale meat remains a food delicacy and is part of traditional Japanese culture. Since the ban on commercial whaling in 1986, Japan has continued to hunt a limited number of whales supposedly to study them. Critics have called this practice a 19-year-old loophole in the ban of commercial whaling. Under IWC rules, Japan has to sell the whale meat once the research is over. Critics claim that most of this whale meat ends up for sale in Japanese delicacy stores and upscale restaurants.

Japan also claims that it needs to kill a limited amount of whales to learn the specifics of their diet by analyzing their stomach contents. At the recent meeting, Japan argued for an expansion of its existing research program to almost double its annual catch from 440 Minke whales per year and, after a two-year feasibility study, to include 50 Humpback and 50 Fin whales.

In response to Japan's plan, Australia moved to criticize Japan's expansion of its research program. The Australian proposal said the Japanese should withdraw their plan unless they could carry out the new research without killing the whales; it also called for the Commission...