In this essay, the issue of whaling is discussed by addressing the international management of whale species as an economic mixed good, having both private consumptive values and private/public non consumptive ones.
We want to stress why and how it is important to take account of both features when we cope with international environmental agreements (IEA) on whales - or similar resources.
In fact international bargaining should be based on total value in order to lead to an optimum level of steady state stock and eventual harvest.
We use the Kaldor Hicks criteria to value bargaining welfare implications.
Bargaining is analysed both by using Nash co-operative theory of two agents behaviour and coalitional analysis (3 agents). By means of that we try to model what we think it is the current IWC (International Whaling Commission) situation under the ban voted in 1982.
We underline the weakness, instability and possible inefficiency of the current IEA, then we highlight how the situation under IWC could be enhanced if transfers may be allowed.
We claim a IWC reform is necessary, by changing the convention goals from being consumptive value oriented to total value oriented. Then we think it is necessary to introduce side payments into the bargaining process to approach an economic optimum so enhancing the current inefficient situation.
Finally, bargaining should be as decentralised as possible, that is each species (and maybe unit stocks within species) should be managed by separated bargaining processes, creating separated markets within the convention, instead of considering whales as one single homogeneous species