Ocean Policy · Whaling

Antigua and Barbuda Withdraws Its Whaling Resolution at IWC70 but Keeps Pushing to Review the Ban

For the third meeting running, the government took a resolution to the International Whaling Commission that conservation groups say would edge the world back toward commercial whaling. It was withdrawn in Hobart, after a petition from 87 countries and a poll showing most residents oppose it, but the request to reopen the moratorium came with it.

By SEVENSEAS Media | Ocean Policy

Antigua and Barbuda went to the 70th meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Hobart, Australia, with the same proposal it had taken to the previous two, and it left the same way: without a vote. The resolution, titled “Implementation of a Conservation and Management Program for Whale Stocks aimed towards the Sustainable Use of Whale Resources”, was withdrawn on the final day of a meeting that ran from 27 September to 2 October. What did not disappear was the government’s interest in a formal review of the commercial whaling moratorium, which has been in force since 1986.

The withdrawal was unusual in how it was done. According to the Antigua Observer, it was Grenada, not Antigua and Barbuda, that withdrew the text, and only “conditionally”. In the same submission Grenada asked the Commission’s Scientific Liaison Group to discuss with the Scientific Committee a procedure for reviewing paragraph 10(e) of the IWC Schedule, the clause that contains the commercial whaling ban. Nicolas Entrup, director of international relations at OceanCare, observed the meeting and told the paper that a review of that paragraph amounts in effect to a review of the moratorium. He noted that Grenada is not a co-sponsor of the resolution, and that some contest whether it could legally withdraw the text on another country’s behalf. The resolution had also been presented in plenary by St Lucia rather than by Antigua and Barbuda’s commissioner, Ambassador Daven Joseph.

“Withdrawing but introducing the same intention through the back door is unacceptable,” Entrup said. Oceanographic Magazine reported that the attempt to start a Scientific Committee process on the moratorium was firmly rejected by New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Mexico.

A sanctuary vote, and where Antigua and Barbuda stood

The same meeting voted again on a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary proposed by Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. It won 39 votes to 18, short of the 75 per cent majority needed to amend the Schedule, having lost by a single vote at the previous meeting in Peru in 2024. Antigua and Barbuda was among the 18 governments that voted against, as were three of its four co-sponsors on the whaling resolution: Palau, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Lucia.

The co-sponsor list itself drew attention before the meeting. Caribbean360 reported that Togo had signed on for the first time, which prompted the West and Central African Coalition for Whales to ask the Togolese government for clarification. A letter from 22 international organisations urging Prime Minister Gaston Browne to withdraw the text before submission was sent on 24 July; the draft was published a week later regardless.

What the resolution proposed, and the government’s case

The title changed between versions, but OceanCare’s analysis, published when the draft appeared on 31 July and summarised by Caribbean360, found the core clause substantively unchanged from 2022 and 2024. That clause proposes a special task force to implement the IWC’s method for calculating commercial whaling quotas. Antigua and Barbuda withdrew both earlier versions, the second at the 2024 meeting in Lima after it failed to reach consensus.

The government frames its position as one about sovereignty and the original purpose of the whaling convention rather than any plan to hunt. In its opening statement in Hobart it argued that the moratorium adopted in 1982 was supposed to be reviewed after ten years and never was, and that decisions should rest on science, international law and the convention itself. Writing in Antigua News in September, Ambassador Joseph cited the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which affirms a coastal state’s right to manage living resources in its exclusive economic zone, and described annual criticism of the country’s stance as a well-funded campaign aimed at shaping public opinion.

“We do not support unregulated whaling. We support regulated, science-based, sustainable use.”

Ambassador Daven Joseph, Antigua and Barbuda’s IWC commissioner

According to Caribbean360, Joseph has said more than 70 per cent of Antigua and Barbuda’s economy depends on the ocean. He has acknowledged that Japan provided more than US$200 million in assistance over two decades, but rejects any suggestion that aid has bought the country’s IWC votes and points out that Japan is no longer a member of the Commission.

A position at odds with domestic law and opinion

Critics point out that the country has no whaling fleet and no history of commercial whaling, and that its own Environmental Protection and Management Act of 2019 designates all cetaceans as protected species. The Antigua and Barbuda Coalition for the Protection of Whales, which describes itself as an alliance of nine local environmental organisations, says the country joined the IWC in 1982 and voted in favour of the moratorium.

In June the Antigua and Barbuda Ocean Trust commissioned a telephone poll of residents from CoreConsult. Joseph has rejected its credibility. Its headline findings, as reported by Caribbean360 and the coalition, are below.

While the Hobart meeting was under way, the coalition delivered a petition to the Prime Minister carrying 5,585 signatures from people in 87 countries and territories, together with a sample of 98 signatories’ comments and seven letters from members of Antigua’s visiting superyacht community. The coalition’s press release framed the signatures as coming from citizens and from the visitors, sailors and yacht owners who choose the country for its healthy seas.

“Support for commercial whaling does not reflect who we are as a nation.”

Martha Watkins Gilkes, for the Antigua and Barbuda Coalition for the Protection of Whales

Two summits on home soil

The timing is awkward for a government that promotes itself abroad on its waters. Antigua and Barbuda is due to host a Caribbean Blue Economy Summit this month and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November. The coalition has asked to meet the Prime Minister once the Commonwealth meeting is over to discuss the country’s position at the IWC from here on.

Whether the Scientific Committee ends up examining paragraph 10(e) depends on how the Commission recorded Grenada’s request. SEVENSEAS had not seen the Commission’s formal record of the Hobart decisions when this article was written, and will report on it once it is available.

Sources: the coalition’s press release via Antigua News Room; reporting by the Antigua Observer, Oceanographic Magazine and Caribbean360; and Ambassador Joseph’s opinion piece in Antigua News.

SEVENSEAS Media · Conservation Journalism for the Ocean