"The UNCLOS text does not specify which international body, or even if there is to be only one body, is the appropriate organisation through which coastal states are to cooperate with respect to the management and conservation of the whale resources. Certainly the precedence for regional bodies to oversee the whaling activities of coastal states in particular parts of the world is not new. The governments of Chile, Ecuador, and Peru formed the Permanent Commission of the Conference on the Use and Conservation of the Marine Resources of the South Pacific in 1952. They established catch regulations broadly similar to those in force for the IWC at that time. Subsequently all those governments have joined the IWC - Chile and Peru in 1979, and Ecuador in 1991."
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