(from "Kujira to Inbou" (Whales and Plots), by Yoshito Umezaki, 1986)

The US delegation marched into London with great enthusiasm, on the basis of the conclusion of the Stockholm conference which recommended each nation agree with 10 years' whaling moratorium to be implemented by the IWC. The chief delegate was Russell C. Train as in the case of the Stockholm conference. Until the previous year, J.L. McHugh - a biologist - served as the chief delegate, but the US government intended to achieve the adoption of the moratorium by using new faces. It was for this reason that Lee Talbot, a non whale-scientist, was newly assigned as the chief scientist. Talbot was a member of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office, an official on the environment, and also was Train's right hand. In this assignment, we can see how large the eagerness of the US government was. Of course, scientists such as J.L. McHugh, D.G. Chapman, D.W. Rice were in the delegation as in previous years. Emboldened by the success at the Stockholm conference, the US government thus planned to gain approval for the moratorium in the IWC.

However in the IWC, things did not work as smoothly as at the Stockholm conference. The objective of the US government failed at the Scientific Committee meeting which was held prior to the plenary session. The US proposal of a ten years' whaling moratorium was unanimously rejected as having no scientific justification or necessity.

Why did such a conclusion come about? It was because members of the Scientific Committee attended the meeting in their individual capacity rather than representing their nations. This means scientists who came from nations which voted for the whaling moratorium at the Stockholm conference could freely express their views as scientists without being bound by their nations' policies. The result of such discussion was a "No" to the moratorium.

The scientists felt discontent at the Stockhlom conference. To begin with, strange to say, no country other than Japan sent specialists on whales to the Stockholm conference. Scientists who knew the status of whale resources, how they were managed by the IWC, were not necessary in the delegations of countries which already had determined in their mind to ban whaling. In fact the US government did not send their experts such as McHugh (chairman of the IWC), Chapman (chairman of the Scientific Committee), Rice (a member of the Scientific Committee) to Stockholm.

Not only the USA, but also IWC member nations such as the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Denmark did not send their credible whale experts to the human environment conference. "It is irrelevant to discuss the management of whales without us." - members of the IWC Scientific Committee may have thought like this. In fact, among the US delegation members who attended the Scientific Committee, Chapman (chairman) and Rice, did not oppose at all the opinion that the moratorium had no scientific justification.

However, Talbot alone resisted. In his role being sent to the Scientific Committee, he could not accept the conclusion just by keeping silent. He demanded his objection to the conclusion that the moratorium lacked scientific justification be recorded in the minutes. However, being refuted by a majority of members that he should show on which basis he objected, he could not argue further. Talbot then stated that he would abstain from voting. This was criticized also: "Since you took part in the lengthy discussions of resource analysis and deliberation, the reason that the result would be unsatisfactory is not acceptable as the pretext of abstention." Then Talbot had to make concessions, and agreed to the recommendation of the committee that the ten years' whaling moratorium had no scientific justification.

At that time, the number of member nations of the IWC was 14, and the following 10 nations voted for the ten years' whaling moratorium at the Stockholm conference.

USA, UK, Canada, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Mexico, Argentina.

Neverthless, the US government had to break through the IWC Scientific Committee. It kept the adoption of whaling moratorium in the IWC as an important diplomatic goal and continued to promote it.

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