PETER Garrett has rejected the International Whaling Commission's latest commercial fishing proposal as unacceptable and setting back whale conservation "by decades".
The Environment Protection Minister has attacked the IWC for being out of touch with modern conservationism and called for the body to be reformed, The Australian reports.
IWC chairman Cristian Maquieira proposed last week to sanction commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary and off the coast of Japan.
The plan suggested members of the commission agree to a quota on the number of whales killed each year by Iceland, Norway and Japan.
But Mr Garrett today slammed the quotas, which he said would be set through ad hoc measures, and attacked the IWC proposal for failing to close the loophole that allowed Japan to kill whales for supposedly scientific reasons.
“The IWC proposal, which would legitimise the commercial whaling of nearly 1300 whales per year, falls well short of any outcome that Australia could accept,” he said.
In an address to the Centre for International and Public Law at the Australian National University in Canberra today, Mr Garrett said the IWC was out of sync with modern conservationism and urged for its reform.
“In short, we believe that should the chair's proposal be implemented without substantive change, it would set whale conservation back by decades,” he said.
“It's especially time for procedural and scientific rigour to be put in place, time for the IWC to refashion itself and look outward to the state of the world's cetaceans.”
International law expert Donald Rothwell said that if the IWC proposal was accepted at its June meeting in Agadir, Morocco, then Australia's legal avenues against Japan would be compromised.
“I understand the government has received legal advice that if the reform options are adopted, its options to take Japan to the International Court of Justice would be compromised. And that would be consistent with my view on the matter,” Professor Rothwell said.
Australia has put forward a counter proposal seeking a swift end to whaling in the Southern Ocean and for all whaling to be phased out within a “reasonable timeframe”.
The Australian proposal has also called for an immediate halt to the issue of `scientific whaling' permits and the hunting of vulnerable and endangered species.
Mr Garrett said the Australian proposal had already won support in South America and “some countries in Europe.”
Professor Rothwell said the Australian plan was really aimed at seeking modification of the IWC proposal.
He said the June IWC meeting would be a test of Australian diplomacy.
“What will be interesting to see will be how much of a concerted diplomatic effort the Rudd government puts into arguing its case,” he said.
He also questioned what role the whaling envoy, Sandy Hollway, would play in rallying support for the Australian proposal.
Read more on The Australian.
