"(A) the United States shall interpret a treaty in accordance with the common understanding of the Treaty shared by the President and the Senate at the time the Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification;

United States Senators and their legal counsels have an annoying habit of being direct and concise when it comes to asserting their jurisdiction. When, in 1986, the Legal Counsel to the State Department asserted that the executive branch had the right to interpret treaties and that its understanding of a treaty could change or "evolve" over time, Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) responded with the above "condition", which was attached to the Senate’s resolution of ratification of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.Readers should note that the text applies to all treaties, not merely the INF Treaty and it binds the U.S. interpretation of all treaties solely to the language of the text and the supporting documentation and testimony supplied to the Senate prior to the Senate vote of ratification on the particular treaty.

All of which renders Agenda Item 4 a highly dubious undertaking, from a U.S. perspective. Washington’s IWC delegation can vote as many times as it likes to hand over the IWC to a purely "conservation" agenda (with conservation being understood to connote total protection, in this context), but the fact remains that it is still indissolubly attached to every word contained in the text of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) and in the supporting testimony that the administration of President Harry S. Truman provided to the Senate prior to ratification of that convention.

Given that the text of the ICRW is indisputably pro-sustainable use, with the contracting parties committing themselves both to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry;", one can only wonder what is the true, central purpose of Agenda Item 4. If it is a disguised attempt to shift the focus of the IWC away from sustainable use towards global sanctuaries, then the attempt is far too thinly disguised. The U.S. will be expected to abide by its own laws and regulations, most particularly those laid out at the opening of this piece. If Washington and its allies do, truly, wish to recast the IWC through a new ICRW, it is perfectly free to – indeed, has no choice but to – offer a new text for discussion and negotiation. Once the relevant text is agreed upon, it may be presented to the U.S. Senate for its consideration and likely ratification. This is, admittedly, a fairly lengthy route, but there is no short cut to the desired goal via a swift hijacking of the original ICRW.