(from "Kujira to Inbou" (Whales and Plots), by Yoshito Umezaki, 1986)

Note:
The words of conversations or statements which were made in English are not the exact wording as the original, because they were translated from Japanese texts in the book.

First committee: planning and management of the human housing environment. And the educational, informational, social and cultural aspects of environmental problems.

Second committee: environment aspects of natural resource management. And development and environment.

Third committee: investigation and regulation of international pollutants. And an international organization to carry out several plans.

The whaling issue was to be discussed in the second committee on June 8th. An anti-whaling demonstration was carried out concerning this schedule. After the conference had started on June 5th, both USA and Japan worked hard in lobbying for the discussion in the second committee meeting scheduled on June 8th.

At first, the US proposal did not seem likely to succeed. The original proposal which was proposed by the US government and distributed by the Secretariat of the conference was as follows. "It is recommended that Governments agree to strengthen the International Whaling Commission, to increase international research efforts, and as a matter of urgency, to call for an international agreement in a ten year moratorium on commercial whaling." To this original proposal, not only whaling nations such as Norway, Iceland, Brazil, but also the UK, Ireland, Canada, Italy, Austria, Panama, Peru, and Nepal were critical. The Japanese delegation estimated that 60 nations out of 112 nations attending supported Japan. The reason for criticism of the original proposal was that it ignored the IWC and it did not have scientific support.

Prior to the meeting, Japan proposed an amendment which restricted the ban of commercial whaling to species threatened with extinction, and distributed the document to explain the reason for the amendment. People's knowledge about whales before the whaling controversy started was almost zero, except for the experts. And it has not changed much up till today. It was the public's perception that there was only one whale species and it was close to extinction.

As I will describe later, whale resource management by the IWC started to shift toward conservation in the 1960s. In 1972, when the Stockholm conference was held, five species of large whales (bowhead, right, gray, blue, and humpback) had already been protected. Four remaining species (fin, sei, Bryde's, and sperm), which were being hunted, were in no danger of depletion. As well as this situation of resource management by the IWC, statements by US experts in Congress were also cited in a Japanese document to explain the amendment. People such as J.L. McHugh (chairman of the IWC), Douglas G. Chapman (chairman of the IWC Scientific Committee), and John Breaux (an official in charge of the whaling issue at the Department of State) had testified at the House of Representatives that there was no need to totally ban whaling.

After the Stockholm conference started, the Japanese delegation split up to persuade other delegations. Countries such as Norway and Canada seemed to sort out the situation by slightly modifying the Japanese amendment proposal. Norway's suggestion regarding the Japanese amendment was to change the wording "endangered species" to "depleted species".

On the other hand, starting from June 7th, the US delegation tried to recover from a setback with its final amendment proposal. It inserted the words: "under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission involving all governments concerned" in front of "in a ten year moratorium on commercial whaling." As it turned out later, this amendment became the key to an overwhelming victory for the USA. Changing the proposal to a more reasonable one by stating that the whaling moratorium was to be achieved by the IWC, not by the Stockholm conference, was a start toward changing the attitude of countries critical of the original US proposal.

On June 8th, the day the whaling moratorium was to be discussed in the second committee, the Japanese delegation entered the meeting site ahead of time and was surprised. There was no one there. A large conference hall of the previous Swedish Diet building - with a capacity of five hundred people - was empty and silent as a grave. What had happened? To the question by the Japanese official of Foreign Ministry, the Secretariat of the conference answered: "For reasons of the proceedings, it was postponed until tomorrow." Why had only Japan not been informed? The Japanese delegation realised the next day that it was the result of lobbying by USA.

Prior to the start of the second committee at 10 A.M. on June 9th, shocking news came to the Japanese delegation. The first news came from Iceland: "Last last night we had a bloc meeting of Scandinavian countries, and it was decided to support the US proposal. Since this was also directed by our government at a high level, we cannot help but follow it." Then Norway: "We decided to support the US proposal. But this was not the result of discussion with the Minister of Fisheries. Our fisheries officials went back to Oslo late last night." It was a sudden change of the whaling nations Iceland and Norway. Although they explained with expressions of apology, other delegations were blunt. Delegates from such as Canada, UK, and Italy, which supported the Japanese position until yesterday, just answered: "Because of the change in the situation, we decided to support the US proposal." "We may lose...", the Japanese delegation members sat down with anxiety.

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