Contributed by, Nicola Gothard
British newspaper ‘The Sunday Times’ led an investigation in to allegations that Japan has been bribing smaller nations to vote in favour of allowing commercial whaling to recommence after a 24 year ban!
Many land-locked and/or poor countries have recently joined the International Whaling Commission after receiving large sums of ‘aid’ from Japan and several countries have admitted they vote ‘pro-whaling’ because of the ”help” Japan has given them.
You can read the article in full here.
It appears that Japan is recruiting small nations in need of financial aid to join the whaling commission to bolster the number of pro-whaling votes. When the ban came in to place in 1986 anti-whaling countries far out-numbered pro-whaling nations. However over the years more pro-whaling nations have joined the commission – some of them completly land-locked. Most of the anti-whaling nations are European with the notable exceptions of Denmark and Norway. However Europe must vote as a block and if they can’t agree all 22 European members will have to abstain from the vote – further bolstering Japans chances of success!
Tags: whaling