David @ Tokyo

Aussie Prime Minister John Howard (you may remember him from his forays into the whaling debate in the past) is currently in Japan for free trade talks.

John Howard recognises that

"... even without the free trade agreement Japan is our best customer"

Australia exports lots and lots of their unneeded surplus beef to Japan each year, in addition to "critically endangered" species that Australia sees fit to exploit commercially for the benefit of it's people (*1).

As is natural, Howard is hoping for more:

"... it will be beneficial if we can get greater access for our exports and of course we have to give something in return."

I'd like to see the Japanese negotiators get a signed declaration from Howard that representatives of his country will refrain from emotive language (*2) in relation to the whaling issue. This should not be so much to ask. After all, even without such a declaration I'm sure John Howard would expect representatives of his nation to conduct themselves with grace and dignity at all times anyway. Alternatively, Howard should acknowledge that such language is pure populism primarily aimed at fringe domestic constituents, and that Australia doesn't mean to cause any offence. I think the Japanese would accept such an admission with gratitude.

Howard has previously admitted that Japan's whaling activities are legal.

The main reason why Australia is against whaling today is because it no longer makes money out of it, and a certain noisy but politically important sector of Australian society is opposed to it.

Were Japan to make Australian tolerance of sustainable whaling a condition for the free trade agreement, Australia would once again have a financial incentive to act in accordance with the object and purpose of the ICRW. The sector within Australia that does not want humans anywhere to catch whales, be it sustainable or not, would of course be unhappy. However, average Joe Aussie who stands to benefit financially from further improved economic ties with Japan may finally see fit to set that noisy bunch straight. Fingers crossed, but unfortunately expecting such an outcome has but maybe a 5% chance...
(^_^)


(*1) On page 39 of this Hansard pdf former Environment Minister Ian Campbell refused to cease Australia's participation in the southern bluefin tuna fishery, noting that it would be "catastrophic for ... Australian fishermen and their families", and regarding the suggestion that Australia move to list the species (classified by the IUCN as "critically endangered") on to Appendix I of CITES, responded negatively, saying "... quite often internationally we are not able as a community of nations to get ideal results. Does that mean you should just pull up Australia's stumps and walk away?"

Given this position and Australia's position on the whaling issue, Australia's priority list appear to be as follows:

1. Australian profits
2. "Conservation"
3. True conservation???
4. Non-Australians???

A better list would look like this:

1. True conservation / sustainable use / Humans

But it's not to be...


(*2) For example, current Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull's recent description of whaling as "barbaric", and former Environment Minister Ian Campbell's ill-selected adjectives of "sick" and "obscene". Back in Australia, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has been accused of "dirty attacks", but that's to be expected in the domestic arena. In the international arena representatives of sovereign nations would be well advised to be more careful with their language.

Labels: double-standards, Ian Campbell, John Howard

Dan Goodman of the Institute for Cetacean Research in Tokyo writes an excellent article in the Canberra Times on the whaling issue, covering most of the issues which I have been raving on about for the past month. His article is so good, that I'm going to dump the whole thing on here:

Debate on whaling being swamped by error and exaggeration
Tuesday, 7 June 2005

RECENT media reports concerning Japan's planned new whale research program in the Antarctic require a context. The 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is about properly managing the whaling industry - that is, regulating catch quotas at levels so that whale stocks will not be diminished. The Convention is not about protecting all whales irrespective of their abundance.

The fact that Australia was a whaling country when it agreed to and signed the Convention and subsequently changed its position to anti-whaling following the closure of its industry in the 1970s does not change the Convention. If Australia can no longer agree to the Convention it should withdraw rather than subvert its purpose.

Although this Convention is almost 60 years old it is in every way consistent with what has more recently become the paradigm for the management of all resources - the principle of sustainable use. The Australian Government accepts this principle in other international fora and for other wildlife species except for a few charismatic species, including whales.

For Australia and many other countries, consistent application of science-based policy and rulemaking has been sacrificed as a political expediency to satisfy the interests of non-government organisations and explained in terms of moral or ethical values. This sacrifice, however, threatens the much-needed international cooperation required to properly manage and conserve all marine resources, and disregards the need to respect cultural diversity. Environment Minister Ian Campbell, who has said, "this practice [whaling] does not belong in the 21st century" should recognize his statement as unacceptable cultural imperialism.

Prime Minister John Howard's condemnation of our research programs on the basis that "it is not science" directly contradicts the IWC Scientific Committee, as do the claims of whale-watching interests that the take of any humpback whales threatens this "endangered" species. When the Committee reviewed the results of the research program at its half-way point, it concluded that Japan's program was providing valuable scientific information and that much of this information could not be obtained by non-lethal methods. Mr Howard can ignore the reality but he cannot change it. Moreover, even the Federal Government manages its fisheries resources on the basis of scientific information.

It is also a matter of record that the IWC Scientific Committee has agreed that the population of humpback whales is increasing rapidly (more than 10 per cent per year) and that it is not threatened or endangered. It is also clear that a small take for research purposes will not affect whale-watching opportunities. Statements to the contrary, together with the Greens' calls to suspend trade talks with Japan and claims of "drastic environmental consequences", are simply hysterical overstatement.

Calls from Labor for a case at the International Court of Justice on the basis that Japan is not acting in accordance with its treaty obligations under the Convention are also without foundation. Article VIII of the Convention unequivocally provides the right of members of the IWC to kill whales for research purposes, and further states that "the killing, taking, and treating of whales in accordance with the provisions of this Article shall be exempt from the operation of this Convention."

One does not need to be an international law expert to understand therefore that Japan's research whaling is perfectly legal and in full compliance with its obligations under the Convention. The fact that research whaling is a right of all members of the IWC, and exempt from the operation of the Convention, clearly renders the calls for a case at the International Court of Justice as nonsense. The same Article VIII says, "Any whales taken under these special permits shall so far as practicable be processed and the proceeds shall be dealt with in accordance with directions issued by the Government by which the permit was granted." The fact that whale meat ends up on the Japanese market is precisely because of the legally binding obligation to process the meat. Claims that the research whaling is "commercial whaling in disguise" ignore this, as well as simple commonsense that valuable food resources should not be wasted.

Further, any international court or tribunal could, on the basis of the language of the Convention, easily and quite properly rule that Australia has failed to meet its legal obligation to interpret and implement its treaty obligations in good faith by deliberately obstructing and delaying the negotiations to establish a management regime for the resumption of sustainable whaling for abundant stocks. Such a ruling would confirm that Australia has, since the adoption of the moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, contributed significantly to the current dysfunctional status of the IWC.

The fact that the Australian Government has publicly stated that it no longer accepts the terms of the Convention and yet continues to participate in the IWC is a self- indictment. For this reason, many would welcome the threatened case by Australia since the likely outcome would be exactly the opposite of that intended.

Is that why Senator Campbell and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock expressed the view that legal action would only be good for lawyers?

Of course, these facts and arguments will not convince the anti-whaling politicians and NGOs that benefit from all the media hype on this issue. It is to be hoped, however, that civil society in general will take a more rational position on the matter. There are enough whales for both those who want to watch them and those who want to eat them. Conservation of whale resources and respect for cultural diversity and international law should be the objective of all members of the IWC.

-----

Key points from this, as I have been saying:
- If the anti-whaling nations don't like the ICRW, they should get out
- The Humpback population which is supposedly "endangered" is in fact booming at a generally accepted rate of about 10%
- Research whaling programmes are undoutedly legal, and bringing court action against Japan would be a huge own goal for the anti-whalers
- Unlike cake, it is possible to watch your whales, and eat them too. There's plenty of whales to go around.

Dan Goodman was in New Zealand a few years ago. I remember seeing him go head to head live on NZ TV with the then Environment Minister - Sandra "Whaling is despicable" Lee. Poor old Sandra got a good thrashing on that occassion. The western media would do well to take Goodman's comment on whaling issues more often.

Labels: Dan Goodman, Ian Campbell, John Howard

Things are warming up nicely for another typical fest of madness and loopiness at IWC 2005.

A few days back the Australian Environment Minister had a column of his posted here.
The Minister (Ian Campbell, to name names) ...
- talks about "fears" the lives of whales are "in danger". Sheez Ian. How do you think the cows and sheep feel? Grow a heart!

- laments the reality that the International community doesn't recognise Australia's claim over large amounts of Antartic waters

- talks about his evil master plan to disrupt Japanese whaling plans:
"The best chance Australia has of stopping the JFA from pursuing its plans is by removing an outdated loophole in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling that allows for so-called "scientific" whaling."
Sorry Ian, but it's no use trying to claim that Article VIII is a loophole in the ICRW - it has been a part of the ICRW right since the beginning back in the 1940's - unlike the commercial whaling moratorium which was only agreed to in 1982. Nor is it possible to "remove" Article VIII from the ICRW. It's in the document that Australia put their signature on - if Australia doesn't like the rules, it should just get out, as is their right to do so. And if that's Australia's "best chance", why not just admit Australia has NO chance, and that this is all just a political stunt to impress domestic voters.

- Notes that "sales of whale meat produced by scientific whaling amount to more than $60 million a year", but fails to mention that the $60 million is put back into funding the research programs, and is also significantly less money than groups such as Greenpeace receive in anti-whaling donations each year. While Greenpeace and co are regarded as "not for profit", apparently Japanese research whaling which generates far less revenue and runs at a loss is "commercial whaling in disguise". Good try though Ian! All of this, and not to mention the fact that Japan needs to make good use of the whale meat or be found in breach of the ICRW...

- starts to wind up with this cracker: "This is full-scale commercial whaling and a slaughter of one of the largest and most intelligent creatures on our planet"
18000 of so whales over 18 years represents nothing like a "full-scale" commercial whaling operation. In the past total whale numbers taken each year were more than 3 times that figure (get your past whaling statistics here). The IWC's Scientific Committee also concluded several years ago that a yearly catch of 2000 minke whales would be sustainable under it's highly conservative Revised Management Procedure. And yet a figure of half that per year is somehow "full-scale"? To put it more bluntly, poor Ian is clearly just scaremongering.

- and finishes off with a big flourish: "Our goal is to amend the IWC convention and remove the loophole that allows scientific whaling. This generation will be judged in part by the way we treat these amazing creatures. Australia will not only continue to fight to save this important species, we will lead this historic mission."

What a hero, huh. It all sounds very grand, but it's a foregone conclusion that Australia will never be able to achieve this goal - it's failed in this "historic mission" before it's even started. But it sounds like a wonderful nice fluffy idea, which is often enough for the western public.


The Japanese hit back strongly, firstly with Joji Morishita in response to a letter from Johnny Howard to Prime Minister Koizumi:

Japan's head whaling negotiator, Joji Morishita, accused Howard of being ill-informed and emotional in criticizing Japan's research whaling program.

"Your prime minister, for example, should be more informed about what is actually happening and the only way to solve this difficult issue is not to inflate (the) emotional side of the issue," he told ABC radio.

"We should look at science and international law; that's the only way to solve difficult international negotiations," he added.

Morishita is giving Johnny Howard a little less credit than he deserves - to be fair Johnny has admitted that the law is with the Japanese. But Johnny is Australian Prime Minister, and when it comes to whaling, Western people do get emotional and say "screw the law". It's fine when it's on your side, but apparently if you're an anti-whaler, you just ignore the law if it's against you.

Takanori Nagatomo also sums up the Japanese motivation for scientific whaling: "We have been engaging in research whaling to collect scientific data so we can resume commercial whaling"
This point is eternally lost upon Western ears, however. Tell all your friends! The Western media is throughly confused, believing that scientific whaling IS commercial whaling - the reality is that scientific research comes before commercial whaling. Without scientific data, there can be no commercial whaling, as management decisions would have no basis. Research whaling programmes contribute valuable such data, and this is also why the anti-whaling governments criticise scientific whaling. With less scientific basis for commercial whaling any quotas that might be set would likely be too small for a business to justify the start-up costs. Hence, it's in the political interests of anti-whaling governments for the world to remain as ignorant about whale stocks as they possibly can.

Nagatomo then scored points when he dismissed federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell's inflammatory criticism of Japan's scientific whaling program as uninformed and probably "drafted by his junior staff".

"I don't believe a man with full knowledge of our scientific research could make such statements," Takanori Nagatomo said after Senator Campbell called the program "sick", "obscene" and "a total insult to the word science".

And shooting home the winner, "He pointed out that removing Article 8 required agreement from all 58 members of the International Whaling Commission".
Naturally, Japan, Iceland, and other nations that believe whaling management decisions should be made with ample scientific information (as required by the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, in Article V - a document which all member nations have put their signature to), so we can expect any such proposal to be soundly voted down. To be honest, I'll be very surprised if Australia even takes that route. They are probably more likely to try to amend the IWC Schedule - but that won't work either as Article VIII of the ICRW states clearly that it's provisions are "Notwithstanding anything in this convention". Functionally this is equally useless, but the anti-whaling politicians might like to hold such a revision to the IWC Schedule - even if totally ineffective - as a trophy to their domestic constituencies.

But anyway - Bang. Ian Campbell - harpooned well and truely.

The anti-whaling UK media has some additional snippets from the exchanges here.

For some much more crass and stupid comment, see here. You can always tell an anti-whaling argument is irrational when you see references to Japan's role in World War II, and comparisons between killing whales with killing humans. No further comment required!

Meanwhile, the coastal whale hunting season has just gotten underway in Japan.

Labels: Ian Campbell, John Howard, Joji Morishita, Takanori Nagatomo

Am I giving the Australian Labor party way too much credit?

With Aussie PM John Howard having admitted that legal action to prevent Japan exercising it's right to scientific whaling was likely to fail the opposition Labor party have come out firing again, demanding Australia take a case to the International Court of Justice.

The Labor party is publicly pretending to be much more confident that a case against Japan would be likely of success than John Howard's incumbent government:

"The case is, Japan's adherence to this practice of so-called scientific whaling for scientific purposes, can be proven to be, underlying it all, false, because the whales in question are then used for commercial purposes."

This is where I start to wonder whether the Labor party is extremely cunning, or extremely ignorant.

First, lets consider the Labor argument. It's a fairly simple one, and often bandied about in the western media as evidence of Japan's scientific whaling being "commerical whaling in disguise": Whale meat taken for the purpose of scientific whaling ends up on sushi plates around Japan. On the surface this is a simple argument and seems to make sense, which is no doubt why it has been so popular with the western media.

However, now lets consider the part of the ICRW relevant to scientific whaling - Article VIII (and keep in mind that anti-whaling governments are all signatory to this).

It has four parts - the 1st part states:

Notwithstanding anything contained in this Convention any Contracting Government may grant to any of its nationals a special permit authorizing that national to kill, take and treat whales for purposes of scientific research subject to such restrictions as to number and subject to such other conditions as the Contracting Government thinks fit, and the killing, taking, and treating of whales in accordance with the provisions of this Article shall be exempt from the operation of this Convention.

Thus Japan and every other signatory to the ICRW clearly have the right to carry out whaling for scientific purposes.
The 2nd part of Article VIII, and the part often incorrectly described as a "loophole" reads:

Any whales taken under these special permits shall so far as practicable be processed and the proceeds shall be dealt with in accordance with directions issued by the Government by which the permit was granted.

Thus, any whales taken by Japan for scientific purposes are required by the Convention to be utilised to the fullest. There's obviously a lot of meat on just a single whale, and what better use for whale meat is there than eating? So ironically, while Japan is endlessly abused by anti-whaling nations for putting whale meat on the market, Japan is in fact required to make the best use of the remains as possible, and would be in breach of the ICRW if they failed to do so.

Now let's go back to Australian Labor's argument. They say that since whale meat goes on the market, scientific whaling is a hoax. We haven't even had to examine the validity of the research that the Japanese do on the whales taken to realise that the argument is a nonsense - Japan is legally required to make good use of the whale remains by the ICRW - a document which both Australia and Japan have put their signature to.

Clearly, the Japanese would have to have a very very bad lawyer in order to lose a case at the International Court of Justice. This isn't a case the Australians could ever win.

So where does this leave us with respect to the Australian Labor party? There are two possibilities:
1) The incumbent government has conceeded that court action against Japan would be a loser. Taking the case would be bad for the government for several reasons: The case would be a financial loss - Japan's whaling stance would be vindicated in front of the whole world once and for all - and this miscalculation would be a huge political embarassment for the Howard government to explain to the Australian public.
The Australian Labor party honchos have possibly observed this themselves. But the Australian public at large probably don't have a clue about this - and why would they? Whales and whaling have little to do with the average Westerner's daily life.
Thus, the Australian Labor party has come up with a great political position - "take this to the International Court of Justice to try to stop Japan". At the superficial level, where the average Australian voter's knowledge of whales and whaling is, this sounds like a wonderful positive action to take.
But in the other corner, the Howard government is now in a lose-lose position politically:
Action I: Take the case to the ICJ - certain to lose, resulting in a wave of criticism by the opposition parties and the public for incompetance of losing what at the superficial level seems like and open and shut case...
Action II: Don't take the case to the ICJ - by heaped with criticism by the opposition anyway, for inaction against the evil Japanese whalers.

Given the options, clearly Action II, although a loser, isn't going to result in a KO victory to the Labor party as would Action I, and is thus the option the Howard government is taking.

The Australian Labor party advisors are to be commended for their political nouse.

2) Or, as I asked at the top of this blog - am I giving the Labor party way too much credit? Perhaps they are just a bunch of chumps with useless advisors who can't understand the plain English of the ICRW?

Labels: John Howard

The Australians aren't so stupid afterall - not their politicians, at least. Johnny Howard (overnight cetacean scientist) and his attorney-general have both concluded that the court action that the anti-whaling politicians of the world have been huffing and puffing about lately "was likely to fail".

But you don't need to read Reuters or listen to the Aussie PM to know that - you can just read my blog. Japan's whaling is perfectly legal. And even Australia and New Zealand are party to the provisions of the ICRW which make it so. They could withdraw their support. But they don't. Because they are politicians.

Other choice bits:

Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said he would seek a permanent ban on commercial whaling and an end to Japan's whaling for scientific purposes at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in South Korea in June.

What a waste of time and Australian tax payer's money. It's the same in New Zealand of course, with nutty Chris Carter joining him there in a tax payer funded propaganda extravaganza.

The reality is that scientific whaling can't be stopped - and it's because nations like Australia and New Zealand remain signatory to the ICRW, the document which legitimises this provision. The anti-whalers talk every year about it, but never put their actions where their mouths are. The tax payers have been fooled for far too long. The Australian and New Zealand politicians don't take any action because they can score political points domestically by pretending that they are actually trying to do something .

"I really genuinely think it is quite possible that the combined strong views put by somewhere between 25 and 35 nations, and some more outside the IWC, should have an impact on the Japanese decision makers,"

Bzzzt, wrong again. Japan won't be influenced by that group of nations. The Japanese government knows that the core anti-whaling nations are just 4 - Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. All the rest are fringe nations who just go along for the ride.That's the IWC.
On the other hand, at the United Nations, which has a far larger, more representative membership, a majority of nations have voted in the past to affirm the principle of sustainable resource use. The Japanese are more than aware that the big 4 anti-whaling nations' dislike of whaling is nothing more than a recent (and likely passing) cultural phenomenon. The majority of people in the world start out looking at whales as just another animal, as do the Japanese.

The Australian newspaper said Canberra was lobbying European nations to secure the numbers to overhaul the IWC rules on scientific whaling.

Almost as disgraceful as it is stupid. Not only is Australia attempting to influence nations to vote a certain way at the IWC, they are even targeting landlocked nations which obviously have no interest in whaling. "The Government will target nations that lack sea ports".

Kudos to The Australian for fronting up and reporting this. They also report that Japan's latest research proposal "is expected to be approved at the commission's coming meeting in South Korea on May 30"
Unfortunately they don't bother to inform their readership on why this is though. But one has learnt not to expect much comprehensive of informative reporting on this issue.

Last word for this Friday night, from the Australian "Environment" minister:

"I will be representing Australia at the next meeting of the International Whaling Commission in June and will be working to remove any loopholes that allow commercial whaling, under the smokescreen of science or anything else,"

"loophole" is a word that the anti-whaling nations love to bandy about, but it has no substance whatsoever. Exercise for the reader: look up "loophole" in a dictionary. Then read Article VIII. It explicitly states exactly what was intended, and the Japanese and other whaling nations abide by Article VIII to the letter. A "loophole" refers to unintentional outcomes. There is simply no way that Article VIII could be described honestly as a "loophole".
The problem that the anti-whaling nations have is that they don't believe in not only Article VIII, but the entire ICRW anymore, and rather than save their honour and withdraw from the ICRW, they instead make silly claims such as this.

Isn't it time that the anti-whaling nations withdrew from the ICRW, stating their recently developed disagreement with it's content?

Labels: Ian Campbell, John Howard

Remember a day or so back, Johnny Howard doubting the scientific validity of the Japanese lethal research programmes?

That's right, yesterday he was finding it "hard to believe" that the take of 400 odd minke whales had any scientific purpose.

Well, what do you know, today Johnny Howard is now a fully fledged cetacean scientist. Today he is declaring categorically that "It is not science to harvest 400 whales. It is not. The decision to go after the humpback whales as well, the decision cannot be justified on scientific grounds."

Oh yes it can :-)

Labels: John Howard

Remember NZ IWC delegate Chris Carter? Last year he made a laughing stock of New Zealand amongst our international peers, getting himself described as being exictable, badly informed and unknowledgable.

He's back!
This time he's talking about taking Japan to the World Court too. However, he says that the chances of NZ winning needs to be taken into account. Chris only needs to read my previous blogs on this topic to know that he doesn't stand a chance in hell of defeating the Japanese - they would likely welcome such a case.

The best bit of the article is that he actually openly admits he's nothing but a mouthpiece for Greenpeace and other such organizations.

And the Greens are back at it too, again shamelessly accusing Japan of "shamelessly" bribing small nations to vote for whaling. Quite a serious allegation, both highly offensive to the small nations in question, as well as the Japanese. Funny, recruiting small nations and appointing their commissioners with their own people is how the anti-whaling bloc pushed through the moratorium in the first place. Why should anyone be surprised that small island nations share Japan's view that natural resources can be sustainably utilised? For some reason, the Greens and other parties keen to intimidate these small nations are happy to have trouble believing this.

In the meantime, Australian Prime Minister Howard has come out showing his ignorance of whaling issues as well.

"We find it hard to believe a cull of 400 minke whales - and we're talking about minkes not the humpbacks - is scientific."

Perhaps Johnny ought to do his homework before making stupid statements like "hey, I can't understand cetacean science, so this must be front for commercial whaling".

First point of call John: high school statistics class and population sampling. Then maybe you'll start to get the picture.

Labels: Chris Carter, John Howard