Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2017)

pp. 71–75

Commentary
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the views of the Institute ofCetacean Research

Evolution of the IWC Scientiﬁc Committee
Dan Goodman1
Institute of Cetacean Research, 4–5 Toyomi-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104–0055, JapanINTRODUCTION
The Scientiﬁc Committee is one of four Committees
established by the International Whaling Commission(hereafter, the Commission), the others being the Financeand Administration Committee, the Technical Committee
and the Conservation Committee. The Scientiﬁc Committee was established by the IWC in 1950. This in part is areﬂection of Article IV of the International Convention
for the Regulation of Whaling (hereafter, the Convention)that refers to scientiﬁc research and the publication ofresults, statistics and reports2 and in part a reﬂection ofArticle V2 of the Convention that states inter alia that
Schedule amendments ʻ…shall be based on scientiﬁcﬁndings…ʼ3. The Scientiﬁc Committee has met each year
since its establishment (Donovan and Hammond, 2017).
The Scientiﬁc Committee was established in accordance with the IWCʼs Rules of Procedure M1 and its
terms of reference are given in Rule M4. The duties of theScientiﬁc Committee are further elaborated in the Rulesof Procedure for the Scientiﬁc Committee which were signiﬁcantly amended by the Commission at its meeting in2016 (see details below). Scientiﬁc Committee priorities
and the initial agenda for the next meeting together withwork plans for the intersessional period are approved atmeetings of the Commission.
Just as the Commission has moved away from its core
responsibilities related to the management of whaling ina manner prescribed by Article IV of the Convention (seefootnote 2), the Scientiﬁc Committee has, to a signiﬁcantdegree evolved away from providing advice on sustainable catch levels for large whales to that of providing
advice on non-direct catch related threats to all cetacean
stocks. This paper describes some of the major factors
and events related to or responsible for this evolution.
The Committee of Three (Four)
Evolution of the Scientiﬁc Committee essentially began
in 1961 with the establishment by the Commission of
the Committee of Three, later Four, scientists who wereexperts in population dynamics. They were tasked withassessing the whale stocks, reporting on the sustainable
yield of these stocks and advising on any conservation
measures that would increase yield. This new focus whichdeveloped and extended the mathematical techniques as
used in ﬁsheries assessments to the science of managing
whale stocks led to recommendations for reduced catches and that the regulation of catches should be on an1

The author is a Councillor at the Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo and a former Visiting Researcher at the Government ofJapanʼs Fisheries Agency. The author has been involved in all aspects of the work of the International Whaling Commission for morethan 30 years. He is a former Senior Advisor in the Government of Canadaʼs Department of Fisheries and Oceans and represented theGovernment of Canada at meetings of the IWC from 1979 to 1996. He is a member of the IWC Scientiﬁc Committee and has been amember of the Government of Japanʼs delegation to the IWC since 1998.
2Article IV
The Commission may either in collaboration with or through independent agencies of the Contracting Governments or other public
or private agencies, establishments, or organizations, or independently(a) encourage, recommend, or if necessary, organize studies and investigations relating to whales and whaling;(b) collect and analyze statistical information concerning the current condition and trend of the whale stocks and the eﬀects of whaling activities thereon;(c) study, appraise, and disseminate information concerning methods of maintaining and increasing the populations of whale stocks.
3Article V(2)These amendments of the Schedule (a) shall be such as are necessary to carry out the objectives and purposes of this Convention
and to provide for the conservation, development, and optimum utilization of the whale resources; (b) shall be based on scientiﬁcﬁndings; ….
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Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2017)individual species basis rather than in the combined Blue
Whale Unit (BWU) system (Gambell, 1977; Allen, 1980).
The New Management Procedure (NMP)
The next major development to impact the work of theScientiﬁc Committee was the Commissionʼs adoption of
the New Management Procedure (NMP) in 1974. This followed: (i) the adoption of a resolution at the 1972 UnitedNations Conference on the Human Environment thatcalled for a 10-year moratorium on all commercial whaling; a demand for greatly increased scientiﬁc researchinto the status of the worldʼs whale stocks; and a call forthe strengthening of the IWC secretariat and its capabilities (Gambell, 1977) and, (ii) the consensus agreement by
the Scientiﬁc Committee that a blanket moratorium could
not be scientiﬁcally justiﬁed (IWC, 1973). With the adoption of the NMP the focus of the Scientiﬁc Committee
became classifying whale stocks into three categories
according to their relative abundance (IWC, 2016a). Alsoin response to the 1972 United Nations Conference on
the Human Environment resolution, the IWC ScientiﬁcCommittee compiled a large-scale program for an International Decade of Cetacean Research (Gambell, 1977).
The Moratorium and the Revised Management
Procedure (RMP)
Between 1972 and 1982, a total of 29 proposals for amoratorium on commercial whaling were proposed.
The Commission rejected all of them except 1 of the 5
proposals proposed in 1982.4 The proposal that was adopted is paragraph 10(e) of the Schedule (IWC, 2016a)—
commonly referred to as ʻthe Moratoriumʼ. It was (atleast on its face) intended as a temporary measure(Morishita, 2013) based on the view that there was toomuch uncertainty in the scientiﬁc knowledge to ensure
safe harvest levels (Morishita and Goodman, 2005; IWC,2017a). There was however, no advice from the Scientiﬁc
Committee that such a measure was required for conservation (Morishita and Goodman, 2005).
Following the moratorium decision, the Commission
asked the Scientiﬁc Committee to develop a new approach to providing advice on the setting of catch limits
that was both safe and practical. This was a complex taskand formed a major part of the work of the Scientiﬁc
Committee during the eight years it took to complete.
4Details of the proposals and the manner in which they weredealt with by the Commission are recorded in the Chairʼs reports of the Annual Meetings. Available at: https://archive.iwc.
int/pages/search.php?search=%21collection49&k=

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The new process was called the Revised Management
Procedure (RMP). It was adopted by the Commission
in 1994 and set a new standard in scientiﬁc management advice for marine and other living resources (IWC,2017a).
Scientiﬁc Committee membership and agenda
Referencing IWC reports, Morishita and Goodman (2005)
recorded that in 1976, 29 scientists representing elevencountries and one intergovernmental organization participated in the Annual Meeting of the Commissionʼs
Scientiﬁc Committee. They note that the agenda for thismeeting consisted of 21 items primarily focused on thestatus of stocks and providing advice to the Commission
on quotas for whaling. They further note that in contrast
to this, the 2004 meeting of the Scientiﬁc Committee wasattended by 202 scientists from 30 member countries
and eight international organizations, and included 41
ʻinvited participantsʼ and one representative from a nongovernmental organization and that the 26-item agenda
included numerous items which are regarded by approximately half of the IWC member countries as outside of
the Commissionʼs mandate such as small cetaceans, DNA
testing, environmental concerns, whalewatching, bycatch in ﬁsheries and ship strikes.
This drastic change in the Scientiﬁc Committee took
place over a number of years beginning in the late 1970ʼswith the recruitment of additional Commission memberswith an anti-whaling position in order to obtain the 3/4
majority vote required to adopt the moratorium. Importantly, the additional membership also provided antiwhaling members with the means to change to focus ofthe Scientiﬁc Committeeʼs work away from the provisionof management advice for the regulation of commercial
whaling through the adoption of resolutions and changes
to the Rules of Procedure of the Scientiﬁc Committee that
only require a simple majority for adoption. The following
examples elaborate this point.
The Berlin Initiative
At its 55th Annual Meeting the Commission adopted
resolution 2003-1 titled ʻThe Berlin Initiative on Strengthening the Conservation Agenda of the International
Whaling Commissionʼ. This resolution references what
are referred to as ʻmore than 100 conservation-oriented
resolutionsʼ and notes that ʻthe Commission has graduallydeveloped an extensive conservation-oriented agendaʼ.
The resolution established the ʻConservation Committeeʼ and, inter alia ʻrequests the Scientiﬁc Committee toadvise the Conservation Committee in the performanceEvolution of the IWC Scientific Committeeof the tasks entrusted to it in this Resolution, and toensure that the appropriate scientiﬁc research items,including inter alia, whalewatching, environmental issues
and behavioural research, under the responsibility of theScientiﬁc Committee, are incorporated in the Conservation Agendaʼ (IWC, 2004). This major shift in the focus ofthe Scientiﬁc Committee agenda has been enhanced byadditional resolutions since 20035 and, approval of theScientiﬁc Committee agenda is a speciﬁc agenda item at
each meeting of the Commission.
Resolution 2014-4: Resolution on the ScientiﬁcCommittee
Resolution 2014-4 that was adopted by consensus recallsʻmore than 50 resolutions of the International Whaling
Commission addressing the work of the Scientiﬁc Committee, particularly regarding the increase and evolving
work over decades on conservation aspects, including
small cetaceansʼ. Further, the resolution notes ʻthat thework of the Scientiﬁc Committee oriented towards issues
related to other threats than direct takes, has increased
over the last decades…ʼ, ʻconsolidates the mandate of
the Small Cetaceans Standing Sub-Committeeʼ and establishes ʻa working group between the Conservation Committee and the Scientiﬁc Committee in order to propose aprocedure to facilitate the implementation and follow-upof conservation recommendationsʼ. Annex 1 of Resolution 2014-4 is a ʻCompiled list of IWC resolutions addressing the work of the Scientiﬁc Committee 1976–2012ʼ
(IWC, 2016b).
As with the Berlin Initiative described above, this resolution adds emphasis to those aspects of the ScientiﬁcCommitteeʼs work that are unrelated to its core responsibility of providing advice on the regulation of commercial
whaling as provided for by the Convention.
Amendments to the Commissionʼs Rules of Procedureand Financial Regulations and to the Rules of Procedureof the Scientiﬁc Committee.
Resolution 2014-4 proposed a number of amendments
to the Commissionʼs Rules of Procedure and Financial
Regulations and to the Rules of Procedure of the Scientiﬁc Committee. The Resolution including proposed
amendments to the Commissionʼs Rules of Procedureand Financial Regulations (Annex II of the Resolution)
were adopted by consensus while, in accordance with5See for example Resolution 2009-1, 2012-1, 2016-3, and2016-4. Available at: https://archive.iwc.int/pages/search.php?
search=%21collection72&k=

the Resolution, proposed amendments to the Rules ofProcedure of the Scientiﬁc Committee (Annex III of theResolution) were referred to the Scientiﬁc Committee for
their advice.
Changes to the Commissionʼs Rules of Procedureincluded references to ʻcetaceansʼ rather than ʻwhalesʼ
and the addition of the words ʻshall review current andpotential threats and methods to mitigate them in orderto maintain cetacean populations at viable levels…ʼ tothe duties of the Scientiﬁc Committee contained in Ruleof Procedure M. 4 (a). Changes to the Financial Regulations established a Research Fund and prescribed that theResearch Fund ʻshall have a balanced distribution among
activities … including small cetaceans…ʼ.
Proposed amendments to the Rules of Procedure ofthe Scientiﬁc Committee also referred to ʻcetaceansʼand ʻsmall cetaceansʼ rather than ʻwhalesʼ and proposed
signiﬁcant changes to the items listed under the headingʻSPECIFIC TOPICS of current concern to the Commissionʼ
(IWC, 2016b).
Proposed amendments to the Rules of Procedure for
the Scientiﬁc Committee included in resolution 2014-4
were considered by the Scientiﬁc Committee at its meeting in 2015. Their recommendations together with some
additional proposed amendments were incorporated
in its Annex R (IWC, 2016c). These additional proposed
amendments included deletion of the section titled ʻSpeciﬁc Topics of current concern to the Commissionʼ. The
Scientiﬁc Committee proposed that this section would be
more eﬀectively located in the introduction to its workplanʼ. Annex R of the 2015 Scientiﬁc Committee report
was then considered by the Finance and Administration
Committee and adopted by the Commission at its 2016
meeting (IWC, 2016d).
In summary, amendments to the Commissionʼs Rulesof Procedure and Financial Regulations and to the Rulesof Procedure of the Scientiﬁc Committee that resulted
from the adoption of Resolution 2014-4 provide strong
support for the view of anti-whaling Commission members that the Scientiﬁc Committee and the Commissionthat approves the work plan and agenda of its ScientiﬁcCommittee have a mandate concerning the managementof small cetaceans as well as a broad mandate related tothreats to cetacean populations.
Whalewatching
The IWC adopted its ﬁrst resolution on whalewatchingin 1993 at IWC45, and the following year, at IWC46, afurther resolution requested advice from the ScientiﬁcCommittee on whalewatching and established what has
73Technical Reports of the Institute of Cetacean Research (2017)

in practice now become an ongoing program of work. In
1998, a standing Whale Watching Sub-Committee was set
up under the Scientiﬁc Committee (IWC, 2011).
OthersOther records that document or demonstrate the shift in
the activities of the Commission and its Scientiﬁc Committee away from their core responsibilities provided by
the Convention to a focus on threats to cetaceans fromissues other than direct takes include:(i) The list of issues on the IWC website under the tabtitled ʻConservation and Managementʼ. Items on
this list include 3 items related to whaling and 11
non-whaling issues including animal welfare issue,
bycatch, entanglement of large whales, strandings,
ship strikes, environmental concerns, conservation
management plans, sanctuaries and MPAs and,whalewatching (IWC, 2017b).
(ii) The 60 correspondence groups established by theScientiﬁc Committee (IWC, 2017c) of which almost
one half are not related to Commissionʼs primaryresponsibility.
(iii) The agenda for the 2017 meeting of the Scientiﬁc
Committee that includes: cooperation with otherorganizations, bycatch, ship strikes, environmentalconcerns, small cetaceans, whalewatching andwhale sanctuaries (IWC, 2017d). At the meeting, anumber of Sub-committees and Working Groups
were established to address some of these issues
even though many members of the Commission
view these as outside of the Commissionʼs mandate.

CONCLUSIONS
While the above has clearly documented the increase in
the work of the Scientiﬁc Committee oriented towards
issues related to other threats than direct takes, it should
be noted that the Scientiﬁc Committee has continued
work related to the management of whale stocks. In thisregard, the agenda for the 2017 meeting of the Scientiﬁc
Committee includes: General assessment issues related
to the Revised Management Procedure (RMP); RMP implementation matters related to North Atlantic common
minke whales, Western North Paciﬁc common minkewhales; Aboriginal Subsistence whaling; In-depth assessments of whale stocks not subject to directed takes; and,cetacean abundance estimates and stock status (IWC,2017d). However, three aspects of the context of thiscontinuing work need emphasis:(i) Changes to the Financial Regulations adopted aspart of Resolution 2014-4 added the following:
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ʻThe Research Fund shall have a balanced distribution among activities, deﬁned according to conservation priorities and the work of the Commission,
including small cetaceans (IWC, 2016b)ʼ.6(ii) Resolution 1997-5 that ʻInstructs the ScientiﬁcCommittee not to consider Southern Hemisphereminke whales in the context of implementation ofthe RMP unless advised to do so by the Commissionʼ remains in eﬀect (IWC, 1998).
(iii) The current politicized nature of the Scientiﬁc
Committee means that it is highly unlikely that its
work on RMP related matters would result in recommendations to the Commission for the settingof quotas for the resumption of commercial whaling (Morishita and Goodman, 2005).
These aspects of the context of the Scientiﬁc Committeeʼs work lend strong support for the following conclusions reached by Morishita and Goodman (2005).
(i) ʻThe deep philosophical and political divisions
between the International Whaling Commission(IWC) member countries that support managed
whaling activities and those opposed to any harvesting of whales has caused a seriously dysfunctional situation in the IWCʼ.
(ii) ʻStrong personal positions on the issues related towhaling, the inﬂuence of national government positions on scientists and advocacy have polarized
the debates within the Scientiﬁc Committeeʼ.
(iii) ʻUnless the Commission and its member governments change their institutionalized discourse andprocedures, it is naïve to expect outputs from theScientiﬁc Committee that are useful for the sustainable use and management of whale resourcesin accordance with the objectives of the ICRWʼ.

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6This is a not so subtle attempt to reduce funding for the Commission and Scientiﬁc Committee work related to the provisionof management advice.

Evolution of the IWC Scientific Committee

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