Editing Whaling (section)

=== International Whaling Commission ===
{{update|section|date=January 2016}}
The [[International Whaling Commission]] (IWC) was set up under the ICRW to decide hunting quotas and other relevant matters based on the findings of its Scientific Committee. Non-member countries are not bound by its regulations and conduct their own management programs. It regulates hunting of 13 species of [[Cetacea#Taxonomy|great whales]] and has not reached consensus on whether it may regulate smaller species.<ref name="iwcjuris">{{Cite web |url=https://iwc.int/smallcetacean |title=Small cetaceans |website=iwc.int |language=en |access-date=2018-04-08}}</ref>

The IWC voted on July 23, 1982, to establish a [[Moratorium (law)|moratorium]] on commercial whaling of great whales beginning in the 1985–86 season. Since 1992, the IWC's Scientific Committee has requested that it be allowed to give quota proposals for some whale stocks, but this has so far been refused by the Plenary Committee.

At the 2010 meeting in Morocco, representatives of the 88 member states discussed whether to lift the 24-year ban on commercial whaling. Japan, Norway and Iceland urged the organisation to lift the ban. A coalition of anti-whaling nations offered a compromise plan that would allow these countries to continue whaling but with smaller catches and under close supervision. Their plan would also completely ban whaling in the [[Southern Ocean]].<ref name="nytimes1">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/world/22whale.html |author=David Jolly |title=Under Pressure, Commission Discusses Lifting Whaling Ban |work = [[The New York Times]] |date=June 21, 2010}}</ref> More than 200 scientists and experts have opposed the compromise proposal for lifting the ban and have also opposed allowing whaling in the Southern Ocean, which was declared a [[Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary|whale sanctuary]] in 1994.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jøn|first=A. Asbjørn|date=2014|title=The whale road: Transitioning from spiritual links, to whaling, to whale watching in Aotearoa New Zealand|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288579743|journal=Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies|issue=29|pages=87–116}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iPUjGuZokfP3tyEKCC8pXzfvgnVg |title=Whaling ban must stay, say 200 scientists |publisher=AFP |date=June 22, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100625062308/https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iPUjGuZokfP3tyEKCC8pXzfvgnVg |archive-date=June 25, 2010 }}</ref> Opponents of the compromise plan want to see an end to all commercial whaling but are willing to allow subsistence-level catches by [[indigenous peoples]].<ref name="nytimes1" />