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International Whaling Commission (IWC) october 14th 2002.
The International Whaling Commission
At its Special Meeting in Cambridge on 14 October 2002, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) formally agreed that Iceland is a member of the Commission. An integral part of Iceland's instrument of aherence is its reservation with respect to the so-called moratorium on commercial whaling. While not all IWC members had hoped for this outcome, they all accepted that the decision had been made and there is no longer a dispute over the status of Iceland within the IWC.
Iceland has made it very clear that it is not joining the IWC in order to resume commercial whaling in the immediate future. The purpose of joining the Commission is to work within it to finalise the Revised Management Scheme (RMS), the IWC's management framework, and resume commercial whaling at some point in the future in accordance with the RMS. Upon joining the IWC Iceland commited itself not to authorise Icelandic vessels to conduct commercial whaling before 2006 and thereafter not to authorise such whaling while progress is being made in negotiations on the RMS. It has furthermore been made clear that under no circumstances will commercial whaling be authorised in Iceland without a sound scientific basis and an effective management and enforcement scheme.
It is the general policy of Iceland to support the principle of sustainable use of living marine resources. It is therefore the view of Iceland is that sustainability is the key issue regarding whaling. Iceland strongly opposes unsustainable whaling, but supports whaling that is sustainable. Iceland accepts the fact that in some countries whales are considered to be special animals that should not be hunted, regardless of whether the catches are sustainable or not. Each country has the right to limit or ban whaling within its national jurisdiction and Iceland does not wish to remove that right. However, Iceland can not accept the attempts of some countries to impose their own cultural attitudes towards whales upon other peoples. While the international community should co-operate to make all whaling operations sustainable, such co-operation should not prevent countries that wish to utilise whale stocks in a sustainable manner from doing so.
The result of the Special Meeting in Cambridge means that Iceland can work constructively within the IWC on creating a management framework for the Commission by finalising the RMS. In accordance with the Convention that governs its work (the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, ICRW) the role of the IWC is to regulate whaling. It is Iceland's hope that the RMS will be finalised soon and that the IWC can from then on play the role of regulating commercial whaling to ensure it is sustainable.