The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and International Whaling Commission – Conservation or Preservation – Can the Gordian Knot be Cut (or Untangled)?

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 451-490
Author(s):  
Malgosia Fitzmaurice
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Context Analysis ◽  
International Convention ◽  
International Whaling Commission ◽  
Commercial Whaling ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Aboriginal Subsistence

Abstract This article analyses the developments in the implementation of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. It first considers the historical background of the Convention and discusses the shortcomings of the Whaling Convention; then focuses on how various types of whaling covered by the Convention developed according to the changes in attitudes of states – parties to the Whaling Convention along the development of international law and international environmental law. The article covers the developments in commercial whaling; aboriginal (subsistence) whaling; and scientific whaling. It emphasises conflicts between the state-parties to the Convention and also in this context analysis the role of the International Whaling Commission. The complex and conflicting issues concerning whaling are not only of legal but political, cultural and ethical nature. Therefore, it appears that that there is no easy solution to existing conflicts in the near future, as the states appear to be intransigent in their views on all types of whaling, especially scientific whaling and the possibility of the resumption of commercial whaling.

Size Still Matters, Although It Shouldn’t: The Debate on Small Cetaceans, IWC 65, and Monaco’s Resolution on Highly Migratory Cetaceans

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed Couzens
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
International Convention ◽  
The Real ◽  
International Whaling Commission ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
United Nations General Assembly

AbstractThis commentary is an update to an article in an earlier issue of Transnational Environmental Law (E. Couzens, ‘Size Matters, Although It Shouldn’t: The IWC and Small Cetaceans. A Reply to Stephenson, Mooers and Attaran’ (2014) 3(2) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 265–78) on the treatment of small cetaceans by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). That article discussed an unsuccessful proposal submitted by Monaco, at the 64th meeting of the IWC in 2012, for a resolution on highly migratory cetaceans. Monaco renewed its proposal in 2014 and, on that occasion, did generate sufficient support for a resolution to give contracting parties to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling a mandate to initiate debate over small cetaceans in other fora. Following this IWC Resolution, in December 2015, the United Nations General Assembly included a clause proposed by Monaco in its Resolution on Oceans and the Law of the Sea. The nature of international law is such that it is difficult to force change without upsetting a delicate equilibrium. Monaco’s initiative, however, may provide significant momentum towards a solution for what remains the real and under-acknowledged problem that there is virtually no international law applicable to small and/or highly migratory cetaceans.

Does Size Matter? The ICRW and the Inclusion of Small Cetaceans

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Stephenson ◽  
Arne Mooers ◽  
Amir Attaran
Keyword(s):  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Convention ◽  
International Whaling Commission ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Commercial Whaling ◽  
Treaty Interpretation ◽  
Size Matter ◽  
Scientific Arguments

AbstractThe competency debate over small cetacean regulation at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is legal in nature, yet has been in a political stalemate for years. In this article we argue that the IWC has the competence to regulate small cetaceans and that the commercial whaling of ‘small cetaceans’ is a violation of the moratorium on commercial whaling. We present hybrid legal and scientific arguments and counter-arguments for the treaty interpretation of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and, given recent precedent, advocate that the International Court of Justice be called upon to resolve this matter.

Innovativeness and Paralysis in International Climate Policy

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Streck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
International Climate Policy ◽  
To Come ◽  
Private Actors

AbstractThis article describes the challenges of using the constrained tools of international law to negotiate a sustainable framework to address climate change. It sets out to show how the particularities of the problem have led to creative and innovative solutions expanding the borders of international law. To this end, the article discusses carbon market mechanisms, the compliance regime of the Kyoto Protocol, and the emerging framework to create incentives to reduce land-based emissions in developing countries. These examples illustrate that the recognition of the role of sub-national and private entities in mitigating climate change has had significant impact on the rules of the climate regime. But the article also asserts that the un process, while recognizing the role of private actors, is still inadequately equipped to involve non-state actors in a meaningful way. The climate regime therefore challenges the traditional thinking about interstate relationships. No longer solely a matter for international environmental law, contemporary environmental governance has become a global affair, which makes the lens of transnational law a useful tool to think about these issues in practice in a more intellectually fruitful and relevant way. This article thereby provides a snapshot of the type of issues and discussion that readers of this journal can look forward to in the years to come.

Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law: Introduction

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 571-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
KISHAN KHODAY ◽  
VANESSA LAMB ◽  
TYLER MCCREARY ◽  
KARIN MICKELSON ◽  
USHA NATARAJAN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Sustainable Livelihoods ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
The World

Environmental harm is of increasing concern to peoples and states all over the world, whether in relation to ensuring access to healthy air, water, food, and sustainable livelihoods, or coping with the diversity of challenges posed by changing climates and ecologies. While international lawyers have focused on crafting solutions to environmental problems, less attention is paid to the disciplinary role in fostering harmful and unsustainable behavioural patterns. Environmental issues are usually relegated to the specialized field of international environmental law. This project explores instead the role of nature in the general discipline, arguing that the natural environment is a determinative factor in shaping international law, and that assumptions about nature lie at the heart of disciplinary concepts such as sovereignty, development, economy, property, and human rights.

Conceptions and (Mis)conceptions of Science in International Treaties; the ICJ Whaling Case in Context

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 607-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Gogarty
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Convention ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Icj ◽  
Commercial Whaling ◽  
The Antarctic

The recent judgment in the International Court of Justice case Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan: New Zealand intervening) determined that Japanese ‘special permit’ whaling in the Southern Ocean was not ‘for the purposes of scientific research’. This is the only exemption permitted under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling’s current moratorium on commercial whaling. The Court made its determination by characterising the Japanese research program as a scientific program, but failing to define what scientific research actually was or was not. This paper presents the background to the decision, and challenges the reasoning of the Court and its standard of review test. It concludes that the Court failed to take the opportunity to offer a clear determination to states on their legal–scientific obligations within international law.

The Principle of Prevention

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-134
Author(s):  
Nicolas de Sadeleer
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Environmental Standards ◽  
Best Available Technologies ◽  
Polluter Pays Principle ◽  
No Harm Principle

This chapter begins by explaining that the preventive principle is complementary to the polluter-pays principle by requiring the adoption of measures intended to prevent damage from arising. It then briefly reviews the evolution of the prevention principle in international law, EU law, and several national legal systems. Having determined the scope of the preventive principle in relation to other principles of environmental law (no harm principle, precautionary), the chapter systematizes its various facets (environmental standards, best available technologies, etc.). It goes on to consider the role of proportionality in determining the degree of prevention sought. It examines the sometimes ambivalent nature of the instruments typical of the preventive principle, using several case studies.

Rising Seas, Receding Coastlines, and Vanishing Maritime Estates and Territories: Possible Solutions and Reassessing the Role of International Law

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-74
Author(s):  
Tony George Puthucherril
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Coastal Zone Management ◽  
Integrated Coastal Zone Management ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Zone Management ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Central Argument

Abstract This article probes the role of international law, (namely, the international law of the sea, the international rules on statehood, and international environmental law) in providing a legal and normative framework to help countries respond to the challenges brought about by sea level rise. It is noted that possible solutions can operate at two levels – first, by re-engineering existing international rules to secure continuance of the rights and privileges guaranteed under existing international law, and second, by bringing to the fore the need to develop international rules on integrated coastal zone management to facilitate the implementation of coastline armouring. The central argument here is that while new rules and principles of international law are required at both levels, the emphasis should, as a first step, be on rule development vis-à-vis integrated coastal zone management.

Intergovernmental Organizations as Disseminators, Legitimators, and Disguisers of Hegemonic Policy Preferences: The United States, the International Whaling Commission, and the Introduction of a Moratorium on Commercial Whaling

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHIRLEY V. SCOTT
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Intergovernmental Organization ◽  
International Whaling Commission ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
Commercial Whaling ◽  
Political Interpretation

AbstractThe recognized benefits to a hegemon of working through an intergovernmental organization (IGO) include legitimating its policy preferences, disseminating them with efficiency, and promoting stability. While most would agree that international law is important in this process, it is less easy to map exactly how international law fulfils this role. Using the cognitive structures of co-operation (CSC) approach to the political interpretation of multilateral treaties, this article demonstrates at a relatively low level of abstraction the way in which a constitutive treaty embeds an ideational structure integral to the political relationships within the IGO. This can serve the interests of the hegemon but may also make it difficult for the hegemon to disseminate a fundamentally changed policy should its preferences alter. This paper uses the CSC theory of treaty interpretation to trace the under-recognized role of the United States in bringing about the 1982 adoption of a moratorium on commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission.

The 2008 United States-India Nuclear Co-operation Agreement and the Work of the International Law Commission on International Liability for Injurious Consequences Arising Out of Acts not Prohibited by International Law

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. BARNIDGE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Impact Assessments ◽  
The Government ◽  
International Liability ◽  
International Law Commission

This article examines the 2008 Agreement for Co-operation Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of India Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy [“123 Agreement”] within the context of the International Law Commission's (ILC) work on international liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts not prohibited by international law. Attention is paid to three issues in particular, namely how international environmental law has developed to interact with vaguely worded environmental protection provisions, such as those in the 123 Agreement, and the role of experts in this regard, the issue of civil nuclear liability, and the question of what international law might require for environmental impact assessments under the 123 Agreement to pass muster.

scholarly journals THE RESURGENCE OF OLD FORMS IN THE EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: THE COLONIAL ONTOLOGY OF THE PRIOR CONSULTATION PRINCIPLE

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (34) ◽  
pp. 343-365
Author(s):  
Douglas de Castro
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Elite Theory ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
Standard Practices

The need to deal with anthropogenic effects over the environment surfaced in the 1960´s mainly due to accidents all over the world with severe impacts on the environment. Therefore, International Environmental Law gained traction and international institutions legitimacy based on the universality of the formation of International Law and the objectivity and neutrality of the science, generating essential exclusions and implication for Global South countries. As colonial domination as part of the imperial projects ceased with the recognition of the sovereignty and self-determination of nations, a new form of granting access to natural resources was necessary. In this study, we argue that International Law and Institutions are proxies of the old ways of imperialism and colonial venture by imposing legal obligations and standard practices to countries disregarding their own experiences, cultures, and values, which has in the principle of prior consultation and its derivatives the most representative stance. As such, the study relies on TWAIL and Elite Theory to unveils the role of International Law and local elites to legitimize the domination and exclusion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document