It keeps getting better - or worse, depending on how highly you rate humanity.
Apparently, the Nauru delegate turned up, promptly met with the Japanese, refused to take a meeting with Senator Campbell of Australia, then voted in favour of the whaling nations, and promptly left the floor. All of it in 25minutes! Canberra is now slamming Nauru according to the Australian.
AUSTRALIA has threatened Nauru with diplomatic action over its stand at the International Whaling Commission, and called for "fundamental reform" to prevent the votes of small nations being bought.Environment Minister Ian Campbell said Nauruan delegate Marcus Stephen's "contemptible" refusal to talk to him before a
vital vote yesterday was something "Australia would have to raise at the highest levels with Nauru".The row with the destitute island nation that relies on Australian aid marred another successful day at the IWC for Mr Campbell and the anti-whaling group. An Australian motion condemning Japan's expanded "scientific" whaling program in the Antarctic won by 30 votes to 27.
It was the second major rebuff for the Japanese-led pro-whaling group, which came to Ulsan with hopes of gaining an IWC majority.
So suddenly Nauru is in the bad books with Canberra; while Canberra busily brings in more people from the detention centres it set up on Nauru.
The Rahmati family, originally from Afghanistan, was among a group of about 36 people still being held on Nauru under the federal government's Pacific solution of processing asylum seekers offshore.
Senator Brown said while it was good news the Rahmati family had been granted temporary protection visas, all other detainees on Nauru should also be brought to Australia.
"It's great but it should never ever have gotten to this," he told reporters.
"Four cruel years under the Howard government these people who now have been validated as asylum seekers to our country have spent on Nauru."The rest of the folk on Nauru should be brought with them. It's a standing blight on not just this government but our country that there are still people left on Nauru when they should be here in Australia and should have been here years ago."
Yadda yadda yadda. So maybe the IWC stoush is good for human liberation too as it makes Australia redress its own hypocritical stance. But it's still the same old moralising:
But Japan, whose research whaling is not covered by the moratorium on commercial hunting, insisted its program would go ahead next summer.
Nauru voted with Japan after Mr Stephen arrived at the commission yesterday morning, refused to talk to Australian officials and got together with the Japanese delegation.
"I'm deeply disappointed Nauru would travel right around the world, refuse to speak to me, literally turn up to spend 25 minutes on the floor, vote with Japan and then wander out again," Senator Campbell said. "It makes you wonder about how Nauru will become any sort of a sustainable nation if that's the way they behave in international forums. It really is very alarming for Australia."
Nauru was one of four developing nations that joined the IWC and the pro-whaling group last week, amid claims Japan promised them increased development aid.
But only Cameroon arrived before Monday, Nauru missed Tuesday's vote on Japan's plans to restart commercial whaling and last night there was still no sign of Togo and Gambia.
Senator Campbell said he would urgently discuss with John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer the need for fundamental reforms at the IWC. The offer of inducements to small island states and developing countries to join the commission and vote a certain way was bad for Pacific development, he said.
"The way the IWC operates now is a process that has a potentially dangerous impact on governance and institutional reform in the Pacific and other developing regions." Senator Campbell called for Japan to drop its program, which increases the number of minke whales to be killed each season from 440 to 935. After two seasons, Japanese whalers will also kill 50 humpbacks and 50 fin whales, which are endangered species.
But Japanese officials insisted the number of whales hunted was scientifically determined and would not be cut.
There you have it. Canberra's threatening economic sanctions on a country in need over whales. Nauru is a good nation when it takes money from Australia to house detention centres but it's corrupt and in need of better governance and institutional reform when it sides with pro-whalers.
Are we getting a little sick of this yet? Well, there's more.
A little surprisingly, the Carribean states are hot under the collar on being voted down on the secret ballot.
"This is a matter on which we in the Caribbean feel very strongly because of the problems we have faced due to our voting in support of the sustainable use of the world's marine resources," he said.
The Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, in Antigua, Joanne Massiah, said that secret balloting would protect the interest of members.
"Several international bodies use the secret ballot and we believe the IWC should protect its members' interests by having it as well," she said, adding, " we are not giving up on this".Caribbean states have been waging a relentless, but so far, unsuccessful battle to get the IWC to use secret balloting as one way of protecting themselves from threats from non-governmental organizations and rich countries which object to their support for sustainable use of marine resources and their backing of Japan's scientific research whaling programme. The regional states also support Japan, Russia, China, Norway and several African and Central American states in a campaign to get the IWC to approve a limited and strictly management scheme of commercial whaling that would target only those species of whales that are in abundance.
But after being threatened with a tourism boycott because of their pro-sustainable whaling stance, the Caribbean states have been trying to get the IWC to introduce secret balloting. When the issue came up on Monday, Australia and New Zealand led the fight against the Caribbean's proposal, winning by a 30-27 margin.
"It is one of our major efforts to have the conference exert the right to secrecy because we in the Caribbean recognize that the larger countries and NGOs are using open voting to create a problem for us," said Liburd.
"We feel that if we were able to have the votes taken by secret ballot we would have been able to make sure that the right to vote on the floor can be exercised without the threats and the reprisals. The NGOs and some of the larger countries are using the way we vote to create problems for us in St Kitts-Nevis and in the Caribbean generally," he said.
"We feel we have a right to vote according to our conscience and to do so in secret and that's why we are pushing for it. We will not stop because of this year's loss."
But representatives of Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Britain argue that secret balloting was unnecessary because most IWC members knew how the various countries voted. Massiah, an attorney, complained that objections to secret balloting were based "on a twisted notion of transparency" in the voting process.
"The advocates for open voting are suggesting that any movement to secret balloting would mean that persons in our home countries wouldn't know how we voted on specific issues before the IWC," she said. "But the fact of the matter is that certainly within the Caribbean region, certainly in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) people already know how their representatives are voting," she added.
In other words, stop trying to paint us into a corner and let us exercise our opinion without being called names. You start to get the picture that the IWC's whaling moratorium is seen as a kind of rich man's luxury in that part of the world. So the bullying and name-calling of Nauru is not isolated and not something that is not going to go un-noticed.
By the way, I also found this little snippet:
日本政府は、南極海での０５年度の調査捕鯨の規模を大幅に拡大する方針を決め、韓国南東部、蔚山市で２０日開幕した国際捕鯨委員会（ＩＷＣ）の年次総会に計画を提出した。ミンククジラの捕獲上限を年４４０頭から９３５頭に倍増し、大型鯨のナガスクジラやザトウクジラの捕獲も始める。大型鯨の捕獲は２９年ぶり。ただ米国などの反捕鯨国は調査捕鯨自体に強く反対しており、総会での反発は必至だ。
日本は次期捕鯨調査計画に、今年度からミンククジラの捕獲を倍増させるとともに、ナガスクジラとザトウクジラを年間５０頭ずつ捕獲することを盛り込んだ。ただし、最初の２年間はナガスクジラの捕獲を年間１０頭に限定し、ホエールウオッチングで人気の高いザトウクジラは捕獲しない予定。計画は６年後に見直す。
日本は商業捕鯨が一時停止された後の８７年から南極海でミンククジラの調査捕鯨を始めた。９４年からは日本周辺の北西太平洋でもミンククジラの捕獲を開始し、００年にニタリクジラとマッコウクジラ、０２年にイワシクジラを追加したが、今回は拡大しない方針。一方、大型鯨の捕獲についてはＩＷＣの規制により、ナガスクジラは７６年、ザトウクジラは６５年を最後に行っていなかった。
日本が計画通りに調査捕鯨の規模を拡大すれば、ＩＷＣに加盟しながら商業捕鯨を継続しているノルウェーの捕獲頭数を大きく上回る。
総会は２０日から５日間の日程で開かれる。商業捕鯨再開の前提となる改訂管理制度（ＲＭＳ）や日本の沿岸小型捕鯨の再開、南太平洋と南大西洋の禁漁区（サンクチュアリ）の設定などが議論される。日本が計画通りに調査捕鯨の規模を拡大すれば、ＩＷＣに加盟しながら商業捕鯨を継続しているノルウェーの捕獲頭数を大きく上回る。
For the record, Japan's proposals pecifically is as follows:
1) hunt twice as many Minke whales, raising tally to 935.
2) For the next 2 years they will only hunt 10 fin whales this year, but have prepared a capcity to hunt 50.
3) Will not hunt humpback whales for the next 2 years because they are popular with whale-watching industry, but will hunt 50 from the third year and will review the numbers in six years' time.
4) The total of Japan's whaling will be more than Norway's commercial whaling quota.
So now the reports are that Japan might quit the IWC and join Canada and Iceland in the cold.
Japanese IWC delegate Jojo Morishita said his country had not ruled out withdrawing from the whaling body. “The option of leaving the IWC has always been on the table,” Mr Morishita said. However, that would first require formal approval from the Japanese parliament.It's funny that both sides feel the IWC doesn't work. Once side because it can't get a total ban and the other because they can't neogtiate for a quota at all. The ALP in Australia are looking to go another route by taking the Japan to the International Court of Justice.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer today poured cold water on the idea that Australia might take Japan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its whaling in Australian-claimed waters.
The ICJ route is one advocated by Labor and the conservation group, the Humane Society International. But Mr Downer said such action could take a decade to resolve and, in any case, could be counter-productive.
"Some members and commentators have argued that we should abandon all of this process, that it doesn't amount to much, and we should instead just go to the ICJ," he told parliament.
"The government's always said that we don't rule in or rule out any options. "But we'd need to consider any measure like that very carefully. "That is the sort of measure that needs to be thought through. Bringing legal action in the ICJ is a
process that, by the way, could take a decade or more. You wouldn't get very
quick results there."Mr Downer said even if such a move were successful, after a decade or so in the ICJ, it would be open to Japan to circumvent the impact of the court's decision by simply withdrawing from the IWC.
"It is better that Japan remains in the IWC where its whaling activities can be supervised and regulated," he said.
"We wouldn't want to over-react in dealing with this issue in such a way that might be to the benefit of a decent headline one day but entirely counter-productive the next."
Both Mr Downer and Mr Howard praised the work of Environment Minister Ian Campbell in advocating Australia's anti-whaling position. But Mr Howard played a straight bat to a suggestion by opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese that the PM harpoon Mr Entsch from his position as tourism parliamentary secretary after he suggested yesterday he disagreed with the government's total opposition to sustainable whaling.
"Our policy on this is well-known," Mr Howard said. "What is more, it has been powerfully articulated by Senator Ian Campbell who's done a wonderful job and I endorse everything that he has said on this subject without reservation."
Heh. A pat on the back from Johnny. But you know, there are no guarantees of a win there because it would mean Australia would have present more than just moral outrage - as in evidence and numbers will get scrutinised and that would lead to a negotiation; not somethinig what Australia *wants*.
So it seems inevitable that the IWC will continue until it collapses in the near future, but how?
Japan's Fisheries Agency predicts a "historical reversal" at next year's IWC
meeting, when it says the pro-whaling bloc will have the majority of votes.
Iceland is the only other country conducting research whaling, while Norway is
the only nation engaged in overt commercial whaling, which it resumed in 1993.
The Japanese are confident they will get a growing support base through 'branch-stacking' the IWC, that will turn into a majority at some point. Until then it's going to be yearly exchange of barbs and insults. But one imagines that the day the majority flips, the anglophone nations will storm out of the IWC and call it bankrupt. That'll be the day.
- Art Neuro
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