CONTENTS

INTERSESSIONAL MEETING ON THE FUTURE OF IWC
RENAISSANCE LONDON HEATHROW HOTEL, 6-8 MARCH 2008

Chair's Report

Chair's Report (420Kb)

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PRESS RELEASE

“The intersessional meeting has spent three days discussing positive ways forward for the IWC”, Dr. Hogarth, the Commission’s Chair, said today releasing a statement summing up the meeting.

“The IWC has in recent years shown increasing signs of polarisation and has reached something of an impasse.  That is why the Annual Meeting in Anchorage last year decided to hold this London meeting,” he said.

“To assist in this process, the Commission obtained the assistance of Prof. Calestous Juma, from Harvard Kennedy School, Ambassador Raúl Estrada-Oyuela and Ambassador Alvaro de Soto, all of whom have extensive and high-level experience with a range of challenging international issues.”

“Intensive discussions following the presentations of the outside experts isolated a number of issues that the Commission will consider in order to improve its practice and procedures,” Dr. Hogarth said.

Among these suggestions were:

• make better efforts to reach decisions by consensus;
• reduce the use of voting
• adopt measures to ensure adequate notice of matters to be considered to reduce surprises;
• employ cooling off periods when difficulties arise;
• consider using small negotiating groups;
• improve the co-ordination between the IWC and other relevant international conventions;
• discuss how to assist the Chair in the running of meetings;
• discuss how to better integrate elements of civil society into the Commission’s work;
• consider whether to change the time of meetings of the Scientific Committee in order to provide more time for consideration of its work and to undertake a review of its composition and function.

“I will present a report of the meeting to the Commission and in consultation with others develop a series of recommendations for improved procedures to take the Commission forward, at the forthcoming Annual Meeting in Chile in June 2008.”

STATEMENT ON SAFETY AT SEA

The Meeting recalled Commission resolution 2007-2 entitled “Resolution on Safety at Sea and Protection of the Environment” as well as resolution 2006-2 entitled “Resolution on the Safety of Vessels engaged in Whaling and Whale Research-related Activities”, both of which had been adopted by consensus by the Commission. It noted reports of dangerous actions by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the Southern Ocean in recent months directed against Japanese vessels.

It called upon the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to refrain from dangerous actions that jeopardise safety at sea, and on vessels and crews concerned to exercise restraint. The meeting reiterated that the Commission and its Contracting Governments do not condone and in fact condemn any actions that are a risk to human life and property in relation to the activities of vessels at sea. It urged Contracting Governments to take actions, in accordance with relevant rules of international law and respective national laws and regulations, to cooperate to prevent and suppress actions that risk human life and property at sea and with respect to alleged offenders. The Meeting recalled that accreditation for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as an observer to the Commission had been denied since 1987 because of unacceptable behaviour and tactics.

BACKGROUND

At the 59th Annual Meeting (IWC/59) in Anchorage in May last year, the Commission agreed that an intersessional meeting should be held prior to the 2008 Annual Meeting to provide an opportunity for Contracting Governments to discuss the future of the organisation, given inter alia the impasse reached on the Revised Management Scheme (RMS) and the number of issues for which polarisation rather than consensus appeared to be the norm within the Commission.

In Anchorage, the Commission had considered the outcomes of three non-IWC meetings held between IWC/58 and IWC/59 regarding the future of the organisation. One was held in Tokyo, organised by the Government of Japan, one was held in New York, organized by the Pew Foundation and one was held in Buenos Aires by Latin American countries. In receiving the reports of these meetings (Documents IWC/59/7, 11 and 28), many countries recognised the positive overlap in some of the suggestions made and the Commission agreed that there was merit in pursuing discussions further through an intersessional meeting under the auspices of the IWC. It was agreed that the meeting should be open to all Contracting Governments and observers. It was also agreed that a Steering Group comprising the Commission Chair and Vice-Chair, the Commissioner for Palau (who chaired the Tokyo meeting), the Commissioner for New Zealand (who chaired the New York meeting) and the Commissioner for Chile (representing those involved in the Buenos Aires meeting) would prepare a draft agenda for the meeting that would be circulated to all Contracting Governments for comment.

The Steering Group met in Washington in October 2007. Noting that attempts made to date to find a way out of the impasse in which IWC currently finds itself have not worked, the Steering Group agreed that there is an urgent need to explore ways that might be more successful and which can improve levels of trust amongst members and others. To this end, rather than launching into negotiations on substantive issues where major differences among IWC members exist, the Steering Group agreed that, initially, it would be more fruitful to take a process-orientated approach and to seek ways to improve how negotiations within the IWC are conducted. The intersessional meeting will therefore focus on matters of process rather than on matters of substance and Contracting Governments will be encouraged to share their ideas on how to improve the working of the Commission.

DRAFT AGENDA

The Draft Agenda for the meeting is available HERE (pdf).

It is intended to devote the first day of the intersessional meeting to hearing from, and gaining the experiences and perspectives of, a number of individuals from outside the IWC but with experience in handling difficult international issues. Drawing on these presentations, the second and third days will be devoted to how discussions and negotiations within IWC can be improved and trust rebuilt.

To facilitate this approach, the services of an acknowledged expert in this field have been engaged, i.e. Special Advisor Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Professor Juma is also a former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

In addition to Professor Juma, other outside speakers attending the meeting are Ambassador Raúl Estrada-Oyuela and Ambassador Alvaro de Soto. They have been invited to take part in view of their extensive and high-level experience with a range of challenging international issues.

Ambassador Estrada-Oyuela has been a major player, in particular, with climate change discussions and the Kyoto Protocol and its implementation, chairing sessions to finalise the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol. He has also been involved with other environmental and sustainable development issues, was on the Board of Governors of the UN Atomic Energy Agency and has a background in international environmental law and policy.

Ambassador de Soto recently concluded 25 years service at the United Nations where he was deeply involved in a range of peace negotiations, his last role being the UN Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. He has a long experience in the UN Security Council, both as a national representative and on behalf of three Secretaries-General and he was also involved in discussions leading up to the adoption of the Law of the Sea Convention.

Both individuals have held senior positions in their national diplomatic services. Both will be taking part in the March intersessional meeting in their personal capacities.

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