A Little Bit More History: Civil Society
Volume LXI · No. 2 · Madeira, Portugal · Tuesday June 23, 2009
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I was privileged to be elected during the IWC Special Meeting in Rome, earlier this year, as one of three Observers for NGOs to address the Plenary for a few minutes, courtesy of the Chairman. It was an interesting and, I think, successful experiment in producing a statement which practically all the NGOs concerned with environmental issues, conservation of marine life and those mainly interested in animal welfare could support. Many of them contributed to its drafting. The statement was not even treated as a part of the official record of the meeting, though copies are said to be available from the Secretariat.
But the statement was conceived and delivered in what I thought was a thoroughly unsatisfactory “environment”. Consider some history. In the very first years of the IWC a trickle of representatives of animal welfare organizations began to attend annual meetings. One in particular is remembered: Dr Harry Lillie, who had been the ship’s doctor on the British expedition Southern Harvester and was horrified by what he described as the cruelty of hunting and killing blue and fin whales with cannon and explosive grenade, many of them shot in the abdomen and taking an hour or more to die. He spoke at the meetings about this and wrote it up in an entrancing but saddening book: The Path Through Penguin City, published by Ernest Benn Ltd, London, in 1955 – the year the IWC abolished the baleen whale Sanctuary in the Southeastern sector of the Antarctic.
In the late 1960s, in the wake of the failure of IWC members to honor the commitment they made in 1960 to bring Antarctic baleen whale catches down at least to sustainable levels by 1964, a steady and growing stream of NGOs concerned with both conservation issues and animal welfare began attending IWC meetings. Each of them was allowed to express its views, hopes and demands by providing a written statement that became part of the IWC official record and, if it wished, to speak, usually in the opening plenary session. These statements, too, became part of the record of the IWC.
As concern by representatives of civil society increased through the 1970s and early 1980s this process took up excessive time, and there clearly had to be some change. A reasonable way might have been for a few to speak on behalf of the rest but, instead, the Commission simply banned such statements outright. Then even the written circulated statements became truncated and regulated until we reach the present situation of rules about what may be written (no criticism of named countries, for example), and no illustrations or glossiness.
I know of no other intergovernmental organization where the rules are so restrictive and authoritarian. Contrast this with other bodies. CITES is often cited as liberal in this respect, but my experience has been as an observer to FAO’s Committee on Fisheries, an authoritative body with more Member states than the IWC. As an Observer for an accredited NGO I can provide documents for circulation and I can ask - and get – the Chair’s permission to speak on any agenda item. The Chairman of course exercises his discretion, but in a reasonable way, provided the requests are reasonable and the timing of such interventions are facilitated by the Secretary of the Committee. Furthermore, Observers at COFI are provided with facilities such as microphones and interpretation devices, and sit at proper seats with table space. Their words are taken into account in the official reports of the session - as well as occasional responses to them from government delegates. And they are not required to contribute part of the expenses of keeping the United Nations running!
I suggest it is time for the IWC to move towards the way the UN conducts its business.
– Dr. Sydney Holt