Ombudsman finds Iceland's Ministry of Food and Agriculture violated administrative law in processing a fin-whale hunting license

On 14 January 2026 Iceland's Parliamentary Ombudsman published a formal opinion finding that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture's handling of an application for a fin-whale hunting license was not conducted in accordance with law. The ombudsman found the ministry's decision to limit the license's validity was based on neither a sufficiently comprehensive assessment nor the principle of proportionality, and that the ministry failed to comply with the administrative-law requirement of timely processing, including delaying its legally required request for an opinion from the Marine Research Institute.