This paper aims at revising the analytical framework of institutional interaction established by Sebastian Oberthür and Thomas Gehring, and applies the revised framework to the international regimes related to cetacean management in order to demonstrate the usefulness of our proposed revision and to systematically describe the regime complex of cetacean management.<br>After reviewing the relevant literature and explaining the institutional interaction framework, we evaluate the framework and describe our revisions.<br>Based on the evaluation we propose to revise the framework by incorporating the utilitarian causal pathway of institutional interaction.<br>The revised framework is applied to the following regimes: International Whaling Commission (IWC); United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR); North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species ofWild Animals (CMS); Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS); Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas (ASCOBANS); Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT).<br>International organizations such as FAO and UNEP were excluded from the study.<br>The case study revealed that, first, the institutional interactions involved in the cetacean management regime complex have synergistic effects when it comes to cognitive interaction.<br>Because this result is consistent with other studies, this feature can be generalized to a significant extent.<br>Second, some effects caused by institutional interaction other than cognitive interaction cannot be determined because it will depend on the actors'perspectives; and, such undetermined effects are caused only by unintentional interaction.<br>Third, the IWC is mostly the source of institutional interaction and there are only two cases that the IWC is the target of interaction.<br>Fourth, there were some cases of forum shopping in the samples, and the driving force of such forum shopping was the difference in the membership which largely determines the expected success to pursue the forum shopper's interest.<br>Fifth, the regime complex of cetacean management has the IWC as a hub regime and the other regimes function largely as mutually complementary to the IWC.<br>For example, the NAMMCO provides international oversight to the whaling operation, and ASCOBANS, ACCOBAMS, and CMS provide governance means for managing small cetaceans.<br>These functions cannot be provided by the IWC because of its dispute over its basic objectives.<br>Sixth, there are actually cases that exhibit long-term cumulative effects resulting from institutional interaction.<br>We conclude that the proposed revision of the framework proved fruitful, and suggest some policy implications to the IWC and further work necessary to analyze institutional interaction.