The international whaling regime post 2007

Japan's delegation to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) must have gone to the 2007 meeting in Anchorage believing that the prospects of at least the commencement of the process leading to the overturning of the moratorium were better than they had been since 1986. The passing of the St. Kitts and Nevis Declaration at the 2006 Meeting, the gathering momentum of their Normalisation agenda, and their own determination to compromise some of their own agenda in the interest of harmony within the IWC, would have formed the basis of this belief. The reality was totally different. There was no compromise by the anti-whaling group within the meeting who also regained the simple majority position which had been lost in 2006.

Japan must face the reality that Normalisation is as far away as ever, and that if the situation within the IWC is to change, it is Japan who must change. This paper canvasses some of the possibilities arising out of the 2007 meeting.