Behind the Scenes: The Inside Story of the IWC 1982 Whaling Moratorium and its Impact on Greenpeace's International Strategies

Greenpeace International is unarguably one of the most prominent international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) of all time. It has operations in 40 countries and its highly visible actions make it an important actor in global governance today. In this paper, I revisit a critical event in the history of Greenpeace: the adoption of the moratorium on commercial whaling at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1982. My claim in this paper is that the involvement of Greenpeace at the IWC shaped the subsequent development of Greenpeace towards: the use of international behind-the-scenes strategies; the focus of the organisation on a limited set of major, global, issues; and the creation of a multinational enterprise (MNE) dedicated to the protection of the environment. Implications for global governance and research on MNEs are discussed.