Herman Melville was a brilliant writer, blending Biblical and Shakespearian prose to describe his experiences in the Navy and on commercial whaling ships of the time.

The novel by Herman Melville in 1851, is the first of the $Billion Dollar Whales. Where the book sales, relating to Moby-Dick must be added to the adaptations for films and graphic novels, to reap a tidy sum for all of those involved is such productions.

Moby Dick was based on a real life sperm whale called Mocha Dick, that sank around 20 ships before finally being killed in 1838. In 1820 the Essex was sunk by a whale matching the description of Mocha Dick, but then in 1851, the Ann Alexander was rammed and sunk by another sperm whale.

The fictional account of whaling in Moby Dick, amounts to a comprehensive picture of whaling before petroleum oil was discovered so as to make whaling un-competitive.

IWC is a voluntary international organization and is not backed up by treaty, therefore, the IWC has substantial practical limitations on its authority. First, any member countries are free to simply leave the organization and declare themselves not bound by it if they so wish. Second, any member state may opt out of any specific IWC regulation by lodging a formal objection to it within 90 days of the regulation coming into force (such provisions are common in international agreements, on the logic that it is preferable to have parties remain within the agreements than opt out altogether). Third, the IWC has no ability to enforce any of its decisions through penalty imposition.

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