“Charity is a good investment” says Japan’s foreign minister about the Japanese Overseas Development Aid program IWC vote buying program.

That’s the quote that kicks off this eye-opening report from the Third Millennium Foundation about just how much a vote at the International Whaling Commission can be bought for, and how many can be bought.
If you don’t know about the International Whaling Commission, it’s the outfit that regulates the whalers. Or tries to. In 1985, they declared the moratorium on commercial whaling, one of the most important measures ever to protect whales from extinction. Since that time, Japan has been “recruiting” new members of the International Whaling Commission that are less inclined to protect whales, chipping away in attempt to ultimately overturn the moratorium. That “recruitment” often comes in the form of a conditional offer of a fish-processing plant, payment of the dues and costs of IWC participation, or other lucrative aid offers. All the recruited country needs to do is show up at the IWC once a year and do as told. As one former IWC commissioner who admitted being bribed told ABC’s Four Corners in a detailed exposé: “I don’t think the international legal community has yet come up with a term to describe this blatant purchasing of small country governments by Japan.”

This year, the anti-conservation forces may have the majority they’ve been fighting for. (At last report, whether Somalia shows up or not may swing it). As whale campaigner Remi pointed out several months ago in his excellent blog, a simple majority may not be enough to overturn the moratorium (that takes a three-quarters majority), but it’s dangerous for many other reasons. With a simple majority the Japanese can:

* Change the rules of procedure to establish secret ballots for voting;

* Promote a resolution endorsing Japan’s and Norway’s “scientific whaling” programmes;

* Seek to abolish the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary established in 1994;

* Dismantle the IWC Conservation Committee set up a few years ago to look at the impact on whale populations of issues such as climate change, pollution, underwater noise, or by-catch from fishing operations;

* Promote a Revised Management Procedure for whaling that would open the way for a full blown resumption of commercial whaling, thereby ending the moratorium on commercial whaling.

But why is Japan so desperately pouring resources into this? The question really needs to be asked if this hasn’t devolved into an insanely weird Samurai pride thing, pitting the Fisheries Ministry against the world environmental movement in a limb-severing fight to the death.
And it especially needs to be asked when a business daily in Japan, Nikkan Kugyo Shimbun, boldy notes that there’s no commercial interest in resuming whaling, no money to be made, and rolls out quotes from a number of fisheries biznessmen breaking ranks with the government propiganda about whaling:

“Are there any young people who want to eat whale meat?” Whale meat consumption figures of 230,000 tons at its peak has now reduced to 1500 tons in 90s. The price also has reduced to around 2000 yen per one kilogram at wholesale price, about which the companies clearly said, “We cannot do anything with that price.”

“Overseas subsidiaries are having big problems. As our business has globalized, whaling has become a hidden risk”, said Mr. Naoya Itagaki, the president of Nissui which takes the brunt of the criticisms against its involvement in whaling because of their share holding position in Kyodo-Senpaku.

So in the absence of a market, it’s a good old government bail-out. According to the Third Millennium Report:

Securing [...] support for Japan’s position at the IWC has become one of the top items on Japan’s foreign policy agenda, suggesting the full backing of the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s office for the recruitment campaign. But the driving force for the entire enterprise comes from the fisheries bureaucrats and industry of Japan, backed by powerful politicians representing fisheries-based constituencies. Virtually all of the recruited countries, with the exception of land-locked Mongolia, have a relationship with Japan in the fisheries sector, be it through bilateral aid, technical cooperation, fisheries access or trade agreements, and/or common memberships in regional and international fisheries bodies where Japan is concentrating efforts to achieve support for its whaling-related policy objectives. Fisheries aid, like all Japanese aid, remains a powerful foreign policy tool for the Japanese government

There are some astounding numbers in these pages. As the results are announced this week of who votes with and against Japan, have a look at the league table of grants contained in this report and see if you can see a correlation.

Follow the money — it ends in a harpoon.