IWC 2012 Day Five With apologies to The Doors, here are a few notes from the last day of IWC 2012: Monaco modified its strategy for involving the United Nations in the fate of migratory whales in the high seas, and withdrew its resolution. The resolution was doomed from the start because of Japan’s opposition, [...]
IWC 2012 Day Three This celebration day for the USA (July 4th) began with a report by the sub-committee on whale killing methods and welfare. Yes, whale welfare has somehow crept into the room, in the guise of “time to death”. Quite possibly, no one disputes the likelihood that suffering is prolonged if death is [...]
IWC 2012 Day Two It turned out I was wrong on just about every count yesterday. First, about the weather. Today, it rained at 2pm, not 4pm as I had stated. True, it did come as an unreal downpour as we skirted the pool under shelter after lunch. When we got to the room the [...]
IWC 2012 Day One One of the great things about Panama is the predictability of the weather. When we got here, about the first thing we learned was that it rained at 4pm each day, with the rain accompanied by thunder and lightning, and that the downpour would stop as suddenly as it began. [...]
IWC 2012 Last year’s IWC 63 meeting in Jersey ended in such disarray that one has to wonder how any of the participants manage to gather together the means to return. Yet indeed we will gather again, this time in Panama, to debate the fate of whales once more, and the future of the International [...]
One would never have known it, observing the celebratory scene in the room after the close of business on Day Four of IWC 63, as old friends and enemies said goodbye to one another for yet another year, but the International Whaling Commission passed through a watershed in Jersey. I was so stunned and [...]
It has been a very long time since I could end a day at an IWC meeting reporting something positive, apart from the camaraderie that accompanies these annual excursions into the world of real whale politik, as seen through the eyes of the vanishing breed called whalers, and newly minted whale lovers. For about as [...]
May there be Light: IWC 2011 opening thoughts Our work with whales ranges from the joyous to the patient to the intolerable. The latter, intolerable, is a comment about numerous violations of fairness and reason on our blue planet, but here in particular about the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which was established in 1946 as [...]
This year’s 62nd meeting of the International Whaling Commission, held in Agadir Morocco, will go down as a failed attempt to restart legally sanctioned commercial whaling. The attempt occurred under the banner of saving some whales’ lives, and bringing some of the worst aspects of present-day whaling under IWC control. Had the “deal” been agreed [...]
There was a palpable sense of relief today, at 6:43pm, when the 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission finally adjourned. There was no decision about a venue for the next meeting. It has been a long and difficult road. This is not to say that Morocco, Agadir, the beach, the promenade, the sunset, [...]