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The 50th Meeting of the parties to the International Convention for the Regulation of
Whaling (ICRW),1 held in Oman in May 1998, may ultimately be recognized as a watershed in
the history of the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) efforts to manage and conserve
cetacean species. While the primary focus of most meetings of the IWC during its first half
century was on regulating the harvesting of regulated species, IWC50 was dominated by
questions of how to confront perhaps the gravest long-term threat to cetaceans: environmental
change. As identified by the IWC’s Scientific Committee, the term “environmental change”
encompasses the following: climate change; chemical pollution, physical and biological habitat
degradation; effects of fisheries; ozone depletion and UV-B radiation; Arctic issues; disease and
mortality events; and the impact of noise.2 The purpose of this article will be to assess the
implications of one of these threats, climate change, for the viability of cetacean species, and the role
of the IWC in seeking to ameliorate climate change impacts.