- Japan has announced to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and will resume commercial whaling July 2019.
- Japan will officially inform the IWC of its decision , which will mean the withdrawal comes into effect by June 30.
- Leaving IWC means Japanese whalers will be able to resume hunting in Japanese coastal waters of minke and other whales currently protected by the IWC.
- But, Japan will not be able to continue the so-called scientific research hunts in the Antarctic that it has been exceptionally allowed as an IWC member under the Antarctic Treaty.
- Japan’s withdrawal also means that it joins Iceland and Norway in openly defying the IWC’s ban on commercial whale hunting.
- According to Japan, whaling is an important part of Japan’s traditions, and the withdrawal would allow fishermen to pass country’s rich whaling culture onto the next generation.
About IWC
- The IWC was set up under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which was signed in Washington DC on 2nd December 1946.
- The IWC has a full-time Secretariat with headquarters located in the City of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
- The preamble to the Convention states that its purpose is to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.
- The IWC which conserve and manage the world’s whale and cetacean population, introduced a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986.
