International Whaling Commission 53: Greenpeace keep an eye on proceedings
There were no speeding inflatable boats, no water hoses, but the democratic process took a pummelling at the IWC meeting in Shimonoseki, as Japan used its bought voting bloc to stop sanctuaries and deny indigenous people subsistence quotas.
Proposals for new whale sanctuaries in the Pacific Ocean and South Atlantic were stopped. And all but one of the countries bought by Japan voted with them to deny the Inuit people of Alaska and the Chukotka people of Russia their indigenous subsistence whaling quota.
Ocean's campaigner Richard Page said this is the most acrimonious IWC meeting Greenpeace has attended in the past 20 years.
"Vote buying by the Japanese government is making a mockery of the democratic process at the IWC. The process should be decided by one country, one vote.
