Whaling commission leaves the global ban in place as Antigua and Barbuda withdraws its resolution

The International Whaling Commission ended its 70th meeting in Hobart, Australia, on Oct. 2 with the global ban on commercial whaling untouched, after a resolution from Antigua and Barbuda on the “sustainable use” of whales was withdrawn before a vote. A separate proposal for a South Atlantic whale sanctuary failed for a second time.

The meeting ran from Sept. 27 to Oct. 2, according to Mongabay, and coincided with 40 years since the moratorium took effect, Oceanographic Magazine reported.

The withdrawn resolution

The Antigua and Barbuda text was titled the Implementation of a Conservation and Management Program for Whale Stocks aimed towards the Sustainable Use of Whale Resources. Mongabay reported that Palau, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and Togo co-sponsored it. OceanCare had called the resolution a thinly disguised attack on the moratorium.

Grenada withdrew the resolution on Antigua and Barbuda’s behalf, according to CaribPulse. The outlet reported that Grenada asked for discussions between the commission’s Science Liaison Group and its Scientific Committee on a procedure for reviewing paragraph 10(e) of the IWC Schedule, the section that contains the moratorium. In its opening statement, Antigua and Barbuda had argued that the moratorium had not been reassessed as originally intended, CaribPulse reported.

OceanCare, a marine conservation group, said opposition from member governments kept the proposal from advancing.

At the previous meeting in Lima, Peru, in 2024, an EU resolution strengthened the moratorium and expressed concern about continued whaling by Japan, Iceland and Norway, according to OceanCare. The moratorium has been in force since 1986.

The South Atlantic sanctuary vote

The sanctuary proposal, put forward by Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, received 39 votes in favor and 18 against, with two abstentions, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency. Iceland and Türkiye abstained. Amending the IWC Schedule requires a 75 percent majority, so the proposal fell short. In 2024, it lost by a single vote.

The 18 governments that voted against were Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cambodia, Côte d’Ivoire, Grenada, Laos, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Morocco, Nauru, Nicaragua, Norway, Palau, Senegal, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Suriname and Tuvalu, according to the EIA.

Clare Perry, the EIA’s senior ocean adviser, said whales and other cetaceans face countless threats from interconnected global emergencies, as quoted by Oceanographic.

Sarah Dolman, a senior ocean campaigner at the EIA, said the chairs of the commission’s Scientific Committee and Conservation Committee once again presented a diverse programme of work. In total, 59 governments cast a vote or an abstention on the sanctuary proposal.

What else passed

The commission adopted several other measures, the EIA reported. They include a resolution on the global trade in fish maw and incidental catches of threatened cetaceans, an EU proposal on vessel strikes, a joint EU and U.K. proposal making cetacean strandings a cross-cutting priority, and the Hobart Declaration, which was adopted by consensus.

Switzerland withdrew its resolution on directed takes of small cetaceans, such as dolphins and porpoises, according to the EIA. Mark Worthing of the Pacific Orca Society told Mongabay that small cetaceans often get less attention even though many die in fishing nets.