Japan Plans to Resume Whaling Program, With Changes to Address Court Concerns, New York

Times, 4/18/14
Having canceled its whaling season following the International Court of Justices (ICJ)
ruling that determined its whaling operations to be in violation of the 1982 moratorium on
whaling, Japan as of last month has announced its plans to continue whaling next year with a
set of changes to its program that would make its operations legal in the eyes of the ICJ. The ICJ
initially ruled against Japan because despite the fleet claiming to be hunting whales for
research, few scientific results were being collected, which supported opponents claims that
such research was simply a cover for a commercial operation. The fleet, who proclaimed that
its primary purpose was to research whale populations in the international waters of the
Antarctic Ocean, plans to return for the hunt next season. By redesigning the program so that
more scientific results are gathered, Japans whaling fleet hopes to pressure the ICJ into rethink
their ruling. In the meantime Japans northern whaling fleet is to be shrunk and saddled with
specific research goals to appease the ICJ during its upcoming hunting season.
International anti-whaling environmentalists believe that whaling is still persist in Japan
because it reflects an admirable opposition to foreign intrusion into traditional Japanese
culture. This recent plan to get around the ICJs ruling may in part have been a political move to
show the governments support of the agricultural and fishing industries, which as a result of an
upcoming trade deal with the US will suffer the effects of lower tariffs on imports. In addition
to redesigning their operations to be more research focused, the fleet will take this season off
to better prepare itself for their inevitable confrontation with the Sea Shepard Conservation
Society next year. Though Japan has announced that they are in the process of creating a new
research program, details on what it will look like have yet to be made public. Though the
quota for the upcoming hunt in the northern Pacific Ocean has been reduced by half. Whether
that is reflective of what the next hunt in the Southern Ocean will look like is not yet certain.
Although experts believe that Japans answer to the ruling of the ICJ will be a reduction in
whales killed and a clearer outline of what scientific objectives are trying to be achieved.
This comes as an unfortunate bit news following the ICJs ruling to ban Japans
commercial whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean. I am not sure if I would rather have Japan
outright disobey the ICJ or simply repaint the faade of their whaling operation to comply with
the research clause of the 1982 moratorium. Taking the latter approach would possibly mean
less whales were killed, but if the ICJ cant ban their activity next year then Japan will ultimately
gain the right to continue harvesting whales forever. This article presents a multi-faceted
examination of Japans whaling industry that confronts the reader with a disturbing reality of its
formidability. I furthermore enjoyed this article because it strayed from the typical story of
environmentalists vs. whalers and instead explored the roles the Japanese government and the
ICJ had in this controversy. This article demands a follow up which I am sure will be coming
along shortly as this issue is rarely absent from the headlines. What I found most interesting
about this piece is how it digs into the more cultural reasons for why whaling persists in Japan.
I was always under the notion that this was done purely for profit, but the author sheds light on
a good point that the continuation of whaling represents a form of opposition against foreign
demands.