Leviathan, the International Whaling Commission and Conservation as Environmental Aspects of International Law

Abstract

HIS STUDY concerns the whale as an object of international conservation and the ability of international legal mechanisms, not only to protect the whale, but more broadly to deal with international conservation. Although presented as a case study, the following material is intended to accomplish three general goals. First, in light of the growing public interest in the status of whales (expressed for example at the recent United Nations Stockholm Convention on the Environment'), it is essential that social scientists have some familiarity with the substance of the issue in order to face more effectively the interdisciplinary aspects of whales as a policy problem. Second, the example of the International Whaling Commission, which has the responsibility of managing whaling, suggests some of the legal and political dimensions of trying to cope with an international conservation problem. Finally, the case of the whales is intended to draw attention to the fact that, as a facet of the overall apparent "environmental crisis," conservation has not received the attention it deserves. As several types of whales appear to be verging on extinction, their situation thus focuses most poignantly on the conservation aspect of ecological concern.