"Most people looking at the IWC now just think it is badly broken, and we need to try and fix it," he said.
Unlikely Compromise?
A ban backtrack certainly won't be voted on at this year's meeting. Many details have to be hammered out before one can even be proposed.
For instance, Japan has previously sought approval for a limited hunt of minke whales off its coast.
One potential deal informally under consideration is to allow this hunt in exchange for an end to Japan's scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean, according to WWF's Lieberman.
"WWF isn't promoting limited whaling," she said. "What we're promoting is trying to stop the unlimited, unregulated whaling that's going on right now."
Glenn Inwood is a spokesperson for the Institute for Cetacean Research, which represents Japan on the IWC. In an e-mail exchange, he said, "Japan would not stop its research programs" even if coastal hunting were allowed.
But he noted that a well-managed commercial hunt based on science would provide "a benefit to people while allowing the whale population to increase."
Patrick Ramage directs the global whale program for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which opposes any compromise that would allow for a resumption of commercial whale hunts.
"We reject this notion that we need to kill more whales to save them," he said.
He added that "the impasse is a bit false." Iceland, Norway, and Japan are the only IWC members that hunt whales for commercial purposes, he noted.
Most of the other countries that have voted to overturn the moratorium, he said, were recruited to the commission by Japan in return for fisheries aid.
"We should be discussing how Japan, Norway, and Iceland will join the vast majority of IWC member countries in putting down their harpoons, picking up cameras, [and] going whale watching," he said.
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