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In a dramatic tum of events, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has retumed to reform and normalization mode. The turnaround came in 2008 after 22 years of bitter bipartisan wrangling leaving the Commission plagued by polarization and stranded at a crossroads over the resumption of commercial whaling. The British-headquartered organization was created by the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
Tasked to effectively conserve and manage 12 species of large whales around the globe, the IWC was denounced for having departed from its Conventional mandate of ensuring proper and effective conservation and sustainable use of large cetaceans in 1986 when it effected moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan retorted back with a large-scale scientific whaling in the Antarctic and northwest Pacific Oceans, a Conventional right of any contacting governmen(Art. Ⅷ). It has also applied for a quota for its traditional coastal whaling.
The IWC’s competence was irrevocably challenged in its 59th Annual Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska in June 2007 when Japan targeted at the anti-whaling group on the validity of distinction between commercial, coastal and aboriginal subsistence whaling and threatened to withdraw from the Convention. In its 60th Annual Meeting in Santiago, Chile last June, the Commission finally agreed to mend its fences and to discuss ways to normalize its workings.
A Small Working Group(SWG) consisting of 28 member countries was commissioned to assist the Commission to arrive at a consensus solution to 33 issues outstanding by developing a package or packages of proposals for the latter’s review in the Madeira Annual Meeting this June. The Group submitted to the Rome inter-sessional meeting of March 2009 its interim Report proposing urgent action on, inter alia, Japanese small-type coastal and scientific whaling.
One remaining obstacle to adopting the SWG’s package of proposals by consensus in the Madeira or subsequent meetings would be the objection of Australia and New Zealand to Japanese scientific whaling in the Antarctic Ocean. An incentive for tradeoff, nevertheless, does exist insofar as the two opposing camps can agree on Japanese coastal whaling in exchange for tougher monitoring/compliance measures relating to e.g. by-catch, whale welfare, small cetaceans and non-lethal use in the upcoming package deal.

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