Today the day began with the discussion and adoption by consensus of a resolution seeking to obtain the right to navigate without risking people’s lives, resolution that had been submitted by Japan (which on several times has had serious conflicts offshore with vessels of conservationist organizations).

Finally, it was the turn of Sanctuaries with a presentation of Brazil, and then the intervention of Argentina as co-author of the proposal for the establishment of the South Atlantic Sanctuary, that was expected to be approved by consensus but, if it wasn’t going to be the case it would be put to a vote. From here on, the polarization that has characterized for years the IWC was, once again, evident when Japan threatened to withdraw from the meeting should this happened, breaking the quorum achieved at the beginning of the day.

In general, in these meetings, approval of proposals by consensus is a common practice, avoiding the votes, which generally only arise as a measure when the first does not work. As it was mentioned before, during the last three years, under the so-called negotiation process towards the future of the IWC, it had been agreed to suspend voting in order to seek agreement. Unfortunately, last meeting this process was declared terminated without having achieved the proposed results, thus arising the usual operating practices that the Commission had before the beginning of that process.

Beyond the interventions of several countries with respect to the improper conduct of a country breaking the quorum, after failing to manage the so much needed consensus, and arising the instance of voting, the delegations of pro-whaling countries left the meeting. Such situation ended with a call for a private Commissioners meeting that continues to up to now.

So far, we await the results of the negotiations, although being this the last day of the meeting, there are many doubts about a positive outcome for the conservation of whales being reached...

We then will wait to see what happens!