Neither Denmark nor its territories nor whales benefit from the current IWC membership rules

Normally, the process of negotiation involves identifying your interests, stating your demands and fighting for the best compromise possible.

But in Denmark’s case, negotiating to expand Greenland’s whaling quotas is more a matter of finding a way to do the least possible damage to its reputation.

Greenland – like the Faroe Islands, the other member of the Kingdom of Denmark – are autonomous territories. Internationally, however, Denmark speaks for them. Both territories are also whaling nations, meaning that Denmark finds itself in a position of negotiating for an expansion of whaling quotas during International Whaling Commission meetings.

Doing so puts Denmark’s representative at odds not just with the Danish public and parliament; it also leaves it the only EU country outside the union’s anti-whaling bloc.

For Denmark, the situation is more than just one of being stuck between its obligations to its former colonies on the one hand and its conscience and union solidarity on the other. In 2012 it will find itself leading negotiations against itself: at that time, Denmark, by an unkind coincidence, will hold the EU presidency at the same time as Greenland’s current quotas are to be renegotiated.

Denmark has sought in vain to change this situation by requesting the obvious solution: that its territories are given their own seats on the IWC, but the organisation’s rules permit only states to be members. This kind of thinking, however, puts rules procedure first, and whales second.

Greenland and Denmark have already mulled the possibility that they will withdraw from the IWC. Such a move would mean that Greenland is no longer obliged to abide by the IWC’s regulations, and place it in the same boat as Norway and Iceland, both of which have commercial whaling industries.

Whale meat is traditionally a part of the Greenlandic diet. Were that still true, a Greenland outside the international monitoring system would be of little threat to the world’s whaling populations. But Greenland already exports 90 percent of its catch to whale-hungry Japan. It is an ominous thought to consider that a Greenland, who even as part of the IWC are asking to expand the quota for endangered fin whales and to add 10 humpback whales, could be left outside international whaling agreements.

Whales deserve the strictest protection possible. And that protection is best secured under the watchful eye of the IWC.