The International Whaling Commission

International Whaling Commission

The International Whaling Commission is an international body set up by the terms of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling , which was signed in Washington, D.C...

 meeting in 2005 was held in Ulsan

Ulsan

Ulsan , officially the Ulsan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's seventh largest metropolis with a population of over 1.1 million. It is located in the south-east of the country, neighboring Busan to the south and facing Gyeongju to the north and the Sea of Japan to the east.Ulsan is the...

, South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 from 20 June–24 June 2005. This meeting saw discussion and vote upon several particularly divisive matters. Notable among them were three defeated Japanese proposals:

• A proposal to have secret ballot
  Secret ballot
  The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...
  
   voting. Many watchers of the Commission interpreted this proposal as designed to allow Japan's protégé member states to vote in a way that was less transparent. (Vote held on 20 June 2005)
• A proposal to re-institute commercial whaling, which would have required a three quarters majority to carry the vote, was defeated 29 votes to 23 against (Vote held on 21 June 2005)
• A proposal to remove a decade old Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, which was defeated 30 votes against 25 (Vote held on 22 June 2005)

Responding to Japan's stated intentions of increasing their scientific whaling quota, Australia also introduced a non-binding resolution that calls on Japan to halt the expansion of its scientific whaling program, which was supported by 30 votes to 25 (Vote held on 22 June 2005). Opponents of scientific whaling claim it is commercial whaling under a different name. New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

's Minister of Conservation

New Zealand Cabinet

The Cabinet of New Zealand functions as the policy and decision-making body of the executive branch within the New Zealand government system...

, Chris Carter

Chris Carter (politician)

Christopher Joseph Carter was an independent Member of Parliament in New Zealand, and a former member of the New Zealand Labour Party until his expulsion. Carter was a senior Cabinet Minister in the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand, serving lastly as Minister of Education, Minister...

, said, "We find (the) whole use of the phrase 'scientific whaling' an outrage." Japan, however, claims that their research activities contribute to scientific knowledge of the management of whales. In the face of these setbacks, Japan has not ruled out withdrawing from the IWC, but this would require approval by the Japanese parliament.