MARCH 2008 Intersessional Meeting

 Intersessional meeting on the future of the IWC, London, 2008

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

Chair's Report

 Chair's Report (420Kb)

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.

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