International Whaling Commission

Wikipedia contributors · CC BY-SA · EN · 04/10/2026

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a specialised regional fishery management organisation, established under the terms of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry".

As the decision-making body of the convention, the IWC reviews and revises measures laid down in the "Schedule to the Convention", which govern the conduct of whaling throughout the world. These measures include: confer complete protection of certain species; designate specific areas as whale sanctuaries; set limits on the numbers and size of whales which may be taken; prescribe open and closed seasons and areas for whaling; and prohibit the capture of suckling calves and female whales accompanied by calves. The Commission also mandates the compilation of catch reports and other statistical and biological records, and is actively involved in whale research, including funding and promoting studies, publishing the results of scientific research, and encouraging studies into related matters, such as the humaneness of the killing operations.

Through the "Florianópolis Declaration" of 2018, members of the organization concluded that the purpose of the IWC is the conservation of whales and that they would now safeguard the marine mammals in perpetuity and would allow the recovery of all whale populations to pre-industrial whaling levels. In response, Japan announced on 26 December 2018, that since the IWC failed its duty to promote sustainable hunting, which is one of its stated goals, Japan is withdrawing its membership and will resume commercial hunting in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone from July 2019, but will cease whaling activities in the Southern Hemisphere.

Structure and membership

The IWC was created by voluntary agreement among the member states to function as the sole governing body with authority to act under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which is an international environmental agreement signed in 1946 in order to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry" and to implement its economic and environmental goals. The role of the commission is to periodically review and revise the Schedule to the Convention, controlling the conduct of whaling by setting the protection of certain species; designating areas as whale sanctuaries; setting limits on the numbers and size of catches; prescribing open and closed seasons and areas for whaling; methods and intensity of whaling, types of gear to be used, methods of measurement and maximum catch returns. Under its constitutive document, the IWC is given the task of adopting regulations "to provide for the conservation, development, and optimum utilization of the whale resources" with the condition that such regulations "shall be based on scientific findings."

The headquarters of the IWC is in Impington, near Cambridge, England. The Secretariat publishes the Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, reports, press releases, and a calendar of meetings.

The commission has three main committees—Scientific, Conservation,

and Finance and Administration.

A Technical Committee is established, but has stopped meeting.

Participation in the IWC is not limited to states involved in whaling. Membership in the IWC has doubled since 2001 with an average of almost six states per year joining the IWC from 2002 to 2008. As of September there were 89 members: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark (which also acts as the Kingdom with the Faroe Islands and Greenland), Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Eritrea, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, the Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Grenada, Republic of Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Kiribati, South Korea, Laos, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mali, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Naoeru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Palau, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Togo, Türkiye, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay.

Since 2012 the IWC has met in even-numbered years, in September or October.

Meetings are composed of one voting representative (called a Commissioner) from each state party who may be accompanied by experts and advisors. They are generally extremely divisive—demonstrating a complete split on all major issues between the pro-whaling governments and their supporters and the anti-whaling countries. The IWC's Rules of Procedure allow non-parties and intergovernmental organisations to attend the meetings and to be represented by observers if they have submitted a written request to the Secretary thirty days before the meeting or if they have attended previous meetings. Non-governmental organisations that maintain offices in more than three countries may also attend the meetings of the IWC.

In 2012, the Commission agreed to move from annual to biennial Commission Meetings. The Scientific Committee continues to meet annually. In years where both meetings are held, a period of at least 100 days separates the two. This is to allow time to read and digest the reports of the Scientific Committee Meeting, before the Commission Meeting begins.

Annual meetings

Members of the International Whaling Commission have met every year since 1949, in addition to having occasional intersessional 'special meetings' (these are not 'annual meetings').

In recent years, the meetings have attracted international media attention due to the growth of the anti-whaling movement.

The IWC also holds occasional "special meetings" (there were five between 1949 and 2007).

From 2012 onwards, it was decided that the annual Commission Meetings would go to biennial Commission Meetings, while the IWC Scientific Committee would still meet annually.

IWC meeting in 2005

The International Whaling Commission meeting in 2005 was held in Ulsan, South Korea from 20–24 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 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.

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.

A proposal to remove a decade old Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, which was defeated 30 votes against 25.

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. Opponents of scientific whaling claim it is commercial whaling under a different name. New Zealand's Minister of Conservation, Chris Carter, 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.

IWC meeting in 2006

The International Whaling Commission meeting in 2006 was held 16 June–20 June in St Kitts and Nevis. Pro whaling countries unsuccessfully challenged the 1982 moratorium, yet succeeded in shifting the IWC focus from whale conservation to management of commercial whaling.

Of the two votes proposed by Japan on the first day, both were defeated by narrow majorities. 30–32 in the case of removing small cetaceans from IWC competence and 30–33 on the proposal to introduce secret ballots. A number of countries, including Costa Rica, Gambia, Peru, and Togo were not present at the vote or had not completed their registration procedures/fees payments before the votes.

Greenland voluntarily introduced a reduction in fin whales taken following advice from the IWC Scientific committee (IWC SC) that the catch of 19 animals may not be a safe level of catch and noted that this left Greenland with a shortfall of 220 tons of whale meat from their quota of 670 tons. They made enquiries into the stock levels of Humpback whales and Bowhead whales around Greenland, with the possible intent of opening up a hunt eventually on these two species to make up the shortfall. This of course alarmed anti-whaling countries and NGO's immediately .

The RMS was discussed yet again in depth to no avail, with the chairman of the IWC, Henrik Fischer, noting that RMS discussions are at an impasse and that he will close discussion on the RMS on the afternoon of 18 June if nobody comes up with any new ideas.

Japan proposed a schedule amendment regarding its coastal whaling communities to take a small number of Minke whales From the "O" Stock. After much discussion, the proposal was defeated with 30 votes for the proposal and 31 votes against with 4 abstentions.

Discussion of the southern ocean sanctuary continued, as well as a Caribbean sanctuary proposed by France. The vote on whether to remove the southern ocean sanctuary was defeated by 28–33 with 5 abstentions. The French delegate was verbally denounced by a number of Caribbean nations for not discussing their proposed sanctuary with any of the other Caribbean nations in advance of their proposal and the proposal was not voted upon.

The St Kitts and Nevis Declaration was discussed and voted upon, and adopted with 33 votes in favour, 32 against, and one abstention, the first time in more than two decades that the Whaling Commission has expressed support for commercial whaling. The Declaration declared the moratorium on whaling "no longer necessary".

1982 moratorium

The 1970s saw the beginning of the global anti-whaling movement. In 1972 the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm adopted a proposal that recommended a ten-year moratorium on commercial whaling to allow whale stocks to recover. The reports of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in 1977 and 1981 identified many species of whales as being in danger of extinction.

At the same time, a number of non-whaling and anti-whaling states began to join the IWC and eventually gained a majority over the whaling states. Some countries who were previously major whaling forces, like the United States, became strong proponents of the anti-whaling cause. These countries called for the IWC to reform its policies and to incorporate newly discovered scientific data regarding whales in its proposed regulations.

On 23 July 1982, members of the IWC voted by the necessary three-quarters majority to implement a pause on commercial whaling. The relevant text reads:

The measure passed by 25 votes to seven, with five abstentions.

Japan, Norway, Peru, and the Soviet Union (later replaced by Russia) lodged formal objections, since the moratorium was not based on advice from the Scientific Committee. Japan and Peru later withdrew their objections (Japan's withdrawal was precipitated by the US threatening to reduce their fishing quota within US waters if the objection was not withdrawn. However, by 1988 the US had eliminated Japanese fishing quotas anyway. It was after this that the Japanese began scientific whaling.). In 2002, Iceland was allowed to rejoin IWC with a reservation to the moratorium (Iceland withdrew from IWC in 1992), but this reservation is not recognised as a valid objection by many IWC members. In addition, Italy, Mexico, and New Zealand do not consider the ICRW to be in force between their countries and Iceland. None of these countries, however, has mounted any legal challenge to Iceland's membership of the IWC.

As the moratorium applies only to commercial whaling, whaling under the scientific-research and aboriginal-subsistence provisions of the ICRW is still allowed. However, environmental groups dispute the claim of research "as a disguise for commercial whaling, which is banned." Since 1994, Norway has been whaling commercially and Iceland began hunting commercially in September 2006. Since 1986, Japan has been whaling under scientific research permits. The US and several other countries are whaling under aboriginal whaling auspices. Norway lodged a protest to the zero catch limits in 1992 and is not bound by them. Anti-whaling countries and lobbies accuse Japan's scientific whaling of being a front for commercial whaling. The Japanese government argues that the refusal of anti-whaling states to accept simple head counts of whale population as a measure of recovery of whale species justifies its continuing studies on sex and age of population distributions, and further points out that IWC regulations specifically require that whale meat obtained by scientific whaling not go to waste. Japan, on the other hand, has raised objections to U.S. aboriginal subsistence whaling, generally seen to be in retaliation to anti-whaling states' (including the United States') objections to aboriginal subsistence whaling for several Japanese fishing communities, which traditionally hunted whales until the imposition of the moratorium.

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Adapted from “International Whaling Commission” by English Wikipedia contributors. Main paragraphs and sections are retained; tables, reference markers and technical markup are omitted. This is an encyclopedic adaptation, not a personal review. Original revision and contributor history ↗. Text is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗. Check current visitor access, tickets and transport with the relevant operator.