1. This Document is purported to be a proposal "to develop a decision by the IWC to Improve the Conservation of Whales". It is nothing of the kind; it is a proposal for the destruction of the International Whaling Commission as a serious inter-governmental body for both the conservation of whales and managing future human uses of them, using relevant and competent scientific and legal advice. It advocates a vir…

Ten Reasons for Concern about the IWC Chair’s suggestions regarding the future of the IWC (the “Plan”)And for vigorously opposing its adoption at the forthcoming meeting of the IWC in Morocco. 1. It envisages continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary; 2. It rejects the Precautionary Principle that was pioneered by the IWC in 1976; 3. It applies ten-year "block quotas", that were disastrous in th…

Dealing in Whales: an Aide Memoir aboutrestoring th Functionality of the IWC Current back-room talks about what might be conceded to Japan if its Government would agree to rein in whaling - especially in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (SOWS) through award of Special Permits under Article VIII of the ICRW 1946, resemble in some respects similar negotiations between the United States and Norway in 1983. It is…

Some readers of my blogs about whaling and the current mania for deals, compromises, appeasement, capitulation, and consensus may have been surprised - even, perhaps, offended - by my comparisons with the Munich sell-out of 1938. So I should explain. Firstly, the 1982/86 "moratorium" was not the prime cause of the near complete pause in commercial whaling, globally. It confirmed the already agreed protections s…