Hypocrisy Endangers the IWC's Future

(from "The Japan Times", 22/Apr/1996)

Charles J.L. McKee



WASHINGTON - If the objective of animal protection organizations and governments is to destroy the 50-year-old International Whaling Commission, they may be near achieving their goal

Through a series of blatant, hypocritical, and probably illegal actions, a number of member countries of the IWC - with the United States as ringleader - have flouted international law and ignored world trade agreements. They have done so in pursuit of domestics and international political agendas and to draw election support from so called "animal rights" organizations.

So far, two nations - Iceland and Canada - have left the IWC in protest over the commission's policies. A third, Norway, has formally and repeatedly protested a whaling moratorium it believes is in violation of the IWC's founding charter. And, Japan has proposed placing a recent IWC decision before the International Court of Justice.

Should the commission reject Japan's proposal at its 48th annual meeting in Scotland in June, Japanese officials may understandably question their continued participation in that body. If Japan departs the IWC, the commission will be a whaling organization with no members who want to resume "the development of the whaling industry".

Tracing the history of broken treaty obligations and hypocrisy by IWC member nations is a fascinating but dismaying exercise. It begins in 1946 in London with the signing of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling by 15 coastal or island nations.

That treaty's preamble clearly states the twin goals of the convention are "to provide for the conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry."

There are two key elements of that statement that have been deliberately ignored by many members of the commission. One is "conservation." Nowhere in the document will a reader find the word "protectionism," nor any intention to impose a worldwide ban on whaling. In fact, the other key phrase is "the orderly development of the whaling industry."

With those thoughts in mind, consider the following sorry history of the IWC:

Given the violations of international law by the IWC - specifically, ignoring its own charter - and the blatantly hypocritical posture of much of its membership, it is surprising that any nation with a history and tradition of whaling remains a member of what has become intellectually, and perhaps morally bankrupt organization.

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