An editorial in the New York Times called the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) ban on whaling “isn’t really a ban at all.”
The column contends that the commission allows Norway, Japan and Iceland to exploit loopholes in the ban and would rather let them slide than enforce regulations.
“The commission’s fear is that renegotiating or eliminating the exceptions will cause the original agreement to unravel, possibly leading to the destruction of the group and the full-scale resumption of commercial whaling,” the editorial says in part. “But the issue here is not the survival of a bureaucracy but the survival of the whales, which face a range of new threats, from habitat loss to climate change. The commission’s nonwhaling members, the United States included, should press for a complete ban.”
The entire piece can be read here.