Legal aspects of the IWC decision on the southern ocean sanctuary

Abstract

This comment is based on, and largely incorporates, a memorandum by the author submitted by Japan to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) at its forty‐eighth meeting in June 1996, in Aberdeen, Scotland. It reviews relevant international law principles of interpretation—including ordinary meaning, objectives and purposes, subsequent conduct, and evolutionary interpretation—in their application to the question of the validity of the IWC action in adopting a Southern Ocean Sanctuary, which forbids the commercial harvest of whales in that area regardless of their conservation status. The review concludes that the IWC acted contrary to the provisions of its charter, the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. An epilogue summarizes the IWC discussion of the memorandum, and the general conclusion that an action by the commission ipso facto determines that it complies with the convention, and suggests that this latest instance of ignoring treaty obligations raises the question of how long the IWC can survive when the majority of its members repudiate the objectives and purposes of the convention.