The International Whaling Commission reached another impasse at its annual meeting on the Portuguese island, Madeira, last month, reaffirming suspicions that the organization has become obsolete.

Members failed to agree on a plan that would allow Japan to hunt whales in coastal waters if the country killed fewer whales for scientific research in Antarctic sanctuaries.

The meeting was expected to precede efforts to adopt a proposal that would reconcile differences between Japan and anti-whaling nations at next year’s assembly, but delegates from more than 80 countries made little headway.

Officials in Japan, Norway and Iceland — the three countries with whaling industries — applauded the move toward “normalized whaling.”

Karsten Klepsvik, Norway’s commissioner at the IWC, said whaling is about national sovereignty, not money.

“For us to be able to utilize the natural resources in a sustainable, scientific way is extremely important,” he said on NPR.

Critics fear the proposal could weaken IWC whaling regulations, eventually ending the moratorium the organization passed in 1986. Thousands of sperm whales were harpooned in decades prior.

IWC Chairman Will Hogarth told The Associated Press in January that the U.S. thinks the commercial whaling ban should stay, and the proposal is an attempt to reduce the increasing number of killed whales.

The support of 63 countries—75 percent of the 84 member nations—is required to change the ban.

Despite the 23-year-old moratorium, Iceland and Norway continue to hunt whales —1,000 annually. Japan catches another thousand for “scientific research,” a claim the anti-whaling bloc alleges is a guise to hunt commercially since the whale meat is sold on the market.

Japan says the lethal research expeditions are necessary to determine whale lifecycle and migration patterns, and accurately measure whale populations in the Southern Ocean. It plans to kill up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales this season, under IWC regulations that the harvest isn’t for commercial purposes.

Opponents are skeptical. Jean-Michel Cousteau, who chronicled whale life with his famed father, Jacques, recently challenged countries claiming to conduct legitimate research by killing whales in the name of science.

At this year’s Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Maryland, the Ocean Futures Society president suggested some nations are just “lying” when they claim to no longer whale commercially.

Donna Petrachenko, representing Australia at the Whaling Commission, also takes issue with Japan’s research.

“Australia believes you don’t need to kill a whale to do proper science,” she said on NPR.

Confrontation between Australia, which stopped whaling in 1979, and Japan caused the IWC to postpone its final proposal to allow Japan to hunt in coastal waters for one year.

The conflict grew especially hairy in February, when activist Paul Watson’s boat, named for the late Australian conservationist Steve Irwin, collided with a Japanese whaling vessel.

Protesters from the Sea Shepard Convservation Society have been following the whaling fleet since early December, trying to stop hunters from pulling their catch onboard.

If the IWC is unable to reach an agreement, the organization is anticipated to fall apart.

Petrachenko hopes that the organization, which originated in 1946 to manage commercial whaling, will circle its wagons, and focus on other threats like climate change.

To learn more about whaling according to the Australian government, check out their Web site about international whale protection.

To learn more about why and how Japan is trying to develop the whaling industry, visit the Japan Whaling Association’s  Web site.