The Legal Status of Whales: capabilities, entitlements and culture

Abstract

Whales, among our planet's most majestic, mysterious, powerful, and intelligent beings, are profoundly endangered. International law has for some time attempted to protect them from extinction. Our paper addresses the legal status of whales and argues that they should be regarded as creatures with rights, not simply as commodities. Currently, international law does not recognize whales as creatures with rights. International organizations, particularly the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and its founding document, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), have focused on the issue of overfishing and have allowed exceptions to usual standards based both on the alleged needs of scientific research (in the case of Japan) and on the alleged claims of culture (in the case of aboriginal groups in the Arctic).