At the International Whaling Commission meeting in London, Iceland’s voting rights were revoked after that country refused to recognize the 15-year old moratorium on commercial whaling. Before the meeting began, Iceland’s whaling commissioner had said that Iceland would resume commercial whaling of minke and fin whales within that country’s coastal waters.
Iceland’s parliament voted to resume whaling as soon as possible in 1999, and a resumption of whaling has wide support on the island nation of 250,000.
Iceland maintains that the IWC lacks the authority to revoke its voting privileges. This could be an extremely important development since many observers believe that Japan and Norway have finally garnered enough support to overturn the moratorium in commercial whaling. Any decision to overturn the moratorium would require approval by 75 percent of IWC members.
Norway objected to the moratorium and is not bound by it — it kills about 500 minke whales every year.
The moratorium on hunting minke and gray whales is almost certainly going to collapse very soon as both species’ populations have recovered to the point where it is becoming increasingly difficult for the IWC to justify the moratorium on scientific grounds.
Sources:
Iceland set to resume whaling. Richard Middleton, Associated Press, July 21, 2001.
Angry split at whaling meeting. The BBC, July 23, 2001.