As most of you will know, the International Whaling Commission's Annual
Meeting begins next week. One of the issues which is likely to dominate early
proceedings is the accession of Iceland. Iceland attempted to rejoin the IWC
last year, but with a reservation to the moratorium on commercial whaling
(contained in the Schedule). This was, predicatably, objected to by anti-
whaling members of the IWC and it was eventually decided that the question
of whether Iceland's reservation was valid or not should be put to a vote. To
cut a long story short, it was eventually decided that Iceland's reservation was
not valid and that Iceland should only be granted observer status. (A summary
of the discussions is on the IWC website in the Chair's Report at:
http://www.iwcoffice.org/chair.htm).

Various legal arguments were thrown around by the various factions within the
IWC but ultimately, of course, the vote went along political lines. I was just
wondering if anyone on the list had any thoughts on the legal aspects of this
issue.

For my part, I consider there to be two main arguments (although admittedly
this is a very crude summary of what is, in fact, a highly complex issue):

First (and assuming this part of the Vienna Convention to be part of customary
law) the IWC did have the competence to vote on the issue, as Iceland
attempted to enter a reservation to a treaty which is the constitutitive
instrument of an international organization. Legally therefore, the Commission
was within its rights to vote on the reservation and reject it.

Alternatively, however, I wonder if it could be argued, as it is important to
have regard to the terms of the treaty and the intentions of the negotiating
States, that since the IWC Convention provides a procedure for dealing with
objections/reservations to amendments to the Schedule that acceding States
should have the option to enter reservations to the Schedule when joining. In
accordance with the Convention, they should do this at the time of acceding or
within 90 days, after which time other States have the option of objecting
(within 90 days).

I was wondering if anyone on the list had any views or comments on this issue.

Chris

PS. For those that are interested in the meeting, there will be a special feature
on it in International Fisheries Bulletin (www.intfish.net) next week. I will keep
you posted!