The whales have a new arch enemy. Its name is Iceland.
Having successfully rejoined the International Whaling Commission in October 2002 under questionable circumstances, Iceland has wasted no time in promoting its pro-whaling agenda. The island nation managed to rejoin the IWC with a reservation (or objection) to the commercial whaling moratorium and, because of a loophole in the international treaty, the country has already submitted a proposal for the 55th Annual IWC Meeting, scheduled for June 16-20 in Berlin, to begin hunting whales for "scientific research." Iceland's plan calls for it to kill 500 whales during the course of a two-year scientific whaling study, which could begin as early as this summer.
This plan is merely a prelude, however. Iceland intends to resume full commercial whaling in 2006. The country has not whaled, whether commercially or "scientifically," since 1989 when fellow pro-whaling nation Japan stopped buying Iceland's whale products due to worldwide pressure. Having initially agreed to the global ban on commercial whaling, Iceland officially withdrew from the IWC in 1992.
Iceland's bid to resume whaling, though, will not come without a fight from many members of the IWC, notes Kitty Block, United Nations and treaties special counsel for The HSUS.
Sixteen member countries, including the United States, have already filed legal objections to Iceland rejoining with a reservation. What's more, two countries, Mexico and Italy, have also filed objections to Iceland's membership, regardless of the reservation. These nations are reacting to the questionable circumstances under which Iceland was readmitted to the IWC during the October intercessional meeting in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where the deck was stacked in favor of the pro-whaling nations.
Host nation Germany, a very outspoken critic of commercial whaling, also plans to introduce a resolution on scientific whaling, which could affect Iceland's plans. Other resolutions may be proposed as well, including one to recognize Iceland as a member but not allow its reservation, and another one that would specifically object to Iceland's so-called scientific whaling program.
The debate over Iceland's readmission with a reservation, and its proposal to immediately kill whales, should make for the biggest battle at the IWC since 1993, when Norway resumed commercial whaling, says The HSUS's Block. After all, she notes, many members of the IWC worry that Iceland's readmission sets a terrible precedent.
"Iceland's whaling plans demonstrate that their true aim in rejoining the IWC is to undermine the convention from within," Block says. "Allowing Iceland to rejoin with a reservation also violates international law and sets a dangerous legal precedent. If a country changes its mind after initially agreeing with a legally binding decision of an international treaty or convention, that country may simply quit and rejoin the convention with a formal objection exempting it from the rules it does not wish to abide by. This renders the entire notion of international agreements a farce—potentially undermining all existing accords and making the negotiations of future agreements increasingly difficult."
The anti-whaling nations seem to have the law and legal precedent on their side when battling Iceland, Block says. As The HSUS has pointed out in an April 2002 document, "Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and decisions of the International Court of Justice, a reservation must be compatible with the 'object and purpose of the treaty' to be valid. Iceland's attempt to adhere to the Whaling Convention with a reservation with respect to the moratorium is necessarily incompatible with the 'object and purpose' of the Convention."
What's more, Iceland's readmission with a reservation breaks with IWC legal precedent, Block notes. Previously submitted reservations—objections that were considerably less threatening than Iceland's reservation to one of the treaty's core obligations—were approved by consensus of the full IWC membership, not a fraction of the members at an intercessional meeting.
The anti-whaling nations have an ally in their battle with Iceland: the Icelandic tourism industry, which has seen its revenues increase since the decline of commercial whaling and the rise of whale watching. Whales have historically avoided Icelandic waters when whalers are wielding their harpoons.
"Iceland's booming tourism industry is not happy with the prospect of an international outcry," wrote Jurgen Hecker in a May 8 report for Agence France Presse, "and sector professionals are haunted by fears that tourists from countries like the United States, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands could decide to boycott Iceland."
