8. REVIEW OF TECHNICAL COMMITTEE MANDATE AND FUNCTION

(from "Chairman's Report of the Thirtieth Annual Meeting")


The Technical Committee had received and reviewed the report of the Working Group set up to discuss the need to develop a truly technical role for this Committee and to develop terms of reference, appropriate rules of procedure and other relevant proposals for Commission action on a reconstituted Technical Committee.

The Commission adopted the proposals as amended by the Technical Committee and agreed accordingly that Paragraph 6 of Rule XVII of the Commission's Rules of Procedure should be replaced by the following mandate:

The Technical Committee shall, as directed by the Commission or the Chairman of the Commission, prepare reports and make recommendations on:

(1)
Management principles, categories, criteria, and definitions, taking into account the recommendations of the Scientific Committee, as a means of helping the Commission to deal with management issues as they arise;
(2)
technical and practical options for implementation of conservation measures based on Scientific Committee advice;
(3)
the implementation of decisions taken by the Commission through resolutions and through Schedule provisions;
(4)
Commission agenda items assigned to it;
(5)
any other matters.

The Commission also accepted the revised Rules of Procedure for the Technical Committee (Appendix 2) and directed that they should be printed in the Commission's Rules of Procedure and Financial Regulations. In accordance with these Rules, the Technical Committee agreed that the Vice-Chairman of the Commission should be nominated as the Chairman of the new Technical Committee, and that the Vice-Chairman of the new Technical Committee should be Mrs P. Fox (USA).

It was suggested that the following subjects should be considered by the new Technical Committee in the coming year:

humane killing;
the new management procedure;
subsistence whaling;
the sex ratio in minke whale catches;
an expanded Observer scheme.

The Technical Committee will meet for a maximum of one week prior to the Commission's Annual Meeting.

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