The International Whaling Commission and the Elusive Great White Whale of Preservationism

This article explores the attempts by international states and organizations to create a global legal whaling regime and examines its underlying competing environmental norms of exploitation, conservation and preservation. It outlines a history of whaling exploitation over the centuries and tracks the development of early whaling regimes, as well as examines the development of the International Whaling Commission and treaty. Legro's test of the robustness of a norm is applied to the whaling regime to determine when, why, and through whose agency normative change was effected within the Commission