ABSTRACT
The withdrawal of Japan from the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) and, hence, from voting membership at the International Whaling Commission (IWC), effective from 2019, has most certainly sent ripples across the globe in the diplomatic and environmental communities. It is the natural result of a very protracted period of open war that opposed two apparently irreconcilable views on whale (and dolphin) management espoused by ‘pro-whaling’ and ‘anti-whaling’ countries, supposedly led by key nations defending these opposite views. The whaling wars’ accepted battleground denominations, however, largely missed the existence of IWC member countries in the developing world with legitimate national interests which, if recognized at the appropriate time, could have led to a different scenario than the continued bipolar division and weakening of the Commission. I intend to present here a commentary based on my 38 years of attendance at the IWC in different governmental and nongovernmental capacities, and my experience with stakeholders from both sides – and the forgotten middle – of the whaling wars.
