A one-day seminar yesterday brought delegates from 12 developing countries, most of them not IWC members, to Tokyo to discuss "sustainable use" of whales, reports BBC News.

An official told the BBC that Japan hoped these nations would join the IWC.

On Thursday, the IWC begins a three-day meeting in London aiming to plot a new course for the fractured organisation.

Officially charged with the effective regulation of commercial whaling, many of its member countries would prefer its central remit to become conservation of the "great whales" and their close relatives such as dolphins and porpoises, with virtually all hunting banned.

But Japan, Norway, Iceland and their allies in the pro-sustainable use bloc argue that there is no reason in principle why whales cannot be hunted like other wild creatures, provided quotas are small enough to be sustainable.

In recent years, both camps have sought to bring new member countries into the IWC to bolster their numbers.

At the 2006 annual meeting, the pro-whalers achieved superiority for the first time in 20 years with the passing of a resolution asking for the eventual return of commercial hunting.

By last year's meeting, enough new anti-whaling countries had joined to give this bloc the upper hand once more.

Both blocs continue to lobby potential new allies - hence Japan's decision to host Monday's seminar looking at the sustainable use of cetaceans.

Some of the 12 countries attending, such as Palau and Cambodia, are already IWC members; but most, including Angola, Eritrea and Micronesia, are not.

Ryotaro Suzuki, head of the fisheries division within Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told BBC News that the government hoped these countries would decide to join the IWC.

But, he added: "We want the idea of sustainable use to be understood by as many countries as possible.

"So if the invited countries do not feel it is appropriate for them to join [the IWC], that is fine as well."

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