Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 2 • Number 16 • 24th October 2002

Iceland Rejoining Whaling Commission

Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say

During a special meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Cambridge, UK on 14 October, IWC members voted for Iceland again to become a full member of the Commission, despite the country’s reservation on the global moratorium on whaling. The vote was extremely close, with 19 votes in favour and 18 against. Conservationists now fear that the power in the IWC has shifted from anti-whaling nations to pro-whaling nations. Greenpeace oceans campaigner Richard Page said: “The commission’s decision is thoroughly disappointing and defies all common sense.” Although pro-whaling nations are now in slight majority, the international moratorium on commercial whaling is likely to stay in force, as a three-fourths majority is needed to rescind it. Iceland has agreed that it will not resume commercial whaling until 2006 at the earliest, and only then under strict regulations. However, it has retained the right to start “scientific” whaling. One day after the meeting, the Swedish Environment Ministry said it regretted the “Yes” vote by the Swedish delegation. The complicated voting procedure at the IWC, and a last-minute procedural challenge by Antigua and Barbuda, which both belong to the pro-whaling camp, had apparently confused the Swedish delegation to support Iceland’s membership.

During the one-week meeting in Cambridge the IWC also granted indigenous peoples from Russia and the US a quota to hunt bowhead whales, which had been rejected earlier this year.

“Greenpeace blasts whaling body over Iceland entry,” REUTERS, 17 October 2002. “Pro-Whaling Iceland Joins International Whaling Commission,” ENS, 14 October 2002. “Iceland Joins Whaling Panel, Shifting Power to Whalers,” The New York Times, 19 October 2002.