|
||||||
| Interim Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals | ||||||
|
Link
to text of agreement
Status
of agreement
| Basic information |
| Date of adoption | 9 February 1957 |
| Place of adoption | Washington DC, USA |
| Entry into force | 14 October 1957 |
| Authentic text(s) | English, Japanese, Russian |
| Associated instruments | - Original agreement - 1980 Protocol - 1984 Protocol |
| Summary of agreement |
The Interim Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals was signed by Canada, Japan, Russia and the United States in February 1957 and entered into force in October of the same year. As its title suggests, the Convention was not designed to be a permanent mechanism and it was originally envisaged that after an "interim" period of 22 years that the Convention would be replaced by a new treaty. In fact this never occurred and, although following the expiry of the agreement in 1979 a Protocol extending its application by four years was adopted and in 1984 a further Protocol was adopted, designed to extend the interim arrangement by a further three years, the latter Protocol never entered into force (it was not ratified by the United States, because of opposition to sealing) and the Convention expired in October 1984 without a successor organization having been established.
The stated objective of the Convention was to achieve maximum sustainable productivity from the fur seal resources of the north Pacific, and to conduct adequate scientific research to this end. In its basic form, the basis of the Interim Convention was similar to that in the 1911 Fur Seal Treaty in that pelagic sealing (i.e. the killing, taking, or hunting of fur seals at sea) was prohibited and that the parties which, as a result, abstained from sealing (in practice Canada and Japan) received some of the benefits of the harvest in the form of delivery of a percentage of the seal skins harvested by the other parties. The two principal differences under the new Convention concerned wider provisions on scientific research and the establishment of the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission (NPFSC) to oversee the implementation of the Convention's objectives. Through the Commission the parties were to formulate and coordinate scientific research programmes to determine measures necessary to maximize the sustainable yield from fur seal resources and to establish the relationship between fur seals and other living marine resources. The Commission was to make recommendations to the parties on the basis of the findings of such research. As under the 1911 Convention, the Interim Convention was supported by measures of enforcement, including provisions for boarding and arresting vessels believed to be acting in violation of the Convention, and an exception was provided to the prohibition on sealing for indigenous communities practising traditional sealing methods.
| Further information and references |
- Additional references
Original agreement: TIAS 3948
1963 Amending Protocol: TIAS 5558 1969 Extending Agreement (Exchange of Notes):
TIAS 6774 1976 Amending Protocol: 1082 UNTS 298;
TIAS 8368 1980 Amending Protocol:
TIAS 10020 1984 Amending Protocol:
IELMT 957:11/E