Countering Japan’s Defiance of International Whaling Conventions
Many members of the international community consider whale-hunting a barbaric practice that should have been banned decades ago. But some countries have long viewed it as a vital commercial enterprise and in some cases, an emblem of their national culture. These contrasting viewpoints figured prominently in the promulgation of the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) signed in 1946. Most signatories wanted to ensure that commercial whaling, then at its peak, wouldn’t result in the extinction of whales, whose numbers were dwindling rapidly. Over the years, calls for a worldwide whaling “moratorium” and the establishment of regional whaling “sanctuaries” have gathered steam, but then, typically, have lost momentum. Despite a growing worldwide concern for whales as a species worthy of permanent protection, powerful opponents have consistently vetoed efforts to shield them from harm as a matter of bedrock principle.
None of these powerful opponents has proven more consequential than the island nation of Japan. It took Japan nearly a decade after signing the ICRW to become a member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) charged with overseeing its implementation. In the interim, Japan took to whaling with a vengeance, openly defying criticism from other ICRW signatories. Moreover, even after joining the IWC, Japan has sought to exploit a number of loopholes in the ICRW to allow it to conduct whale-hunting with impunity. Finally, in December 2018, in the midst of ongoing disputes over how best to reform the ICRW, Japan announced that it was leaving the IWC altogether. Today, virtually alone in the world community, Japan no longer recognizes any international authority to regulate its whaling operations.
How has Japan managed to escape criticism for so long? Two reasons stand out. First, ever since it hosted the Kyoto Accord in 1997, Japan has been recognized as one of the world’s pre-eminent leaders on the issue of climate change. Where other nations have stalled and stonewalled, Japan has steadfastly promoted the cause. Japan’s continued leadership is critical if the world is ever to establish effective limits on the release of greenhouse gasses. This acknowledged role has given Japan significant leverage over the international community on other issues like whaling.
The same is true of Japan’s increasingly important security role in the Asia-Pacific. Japan is viewed, especially by the United States, as a critical bulwark against the advance of China. In recent years, Japan, even at the risk of fomenting domestic civil unrest, has agreed to increase annual defense spending and to adopt a more aggressive military posture in the Pacific. This issue has figured prominently in the US-Japan bilateral relationship, blocking out all other concerns. Despite pressure from international NGOs on the Obama administration to intervene with Japan over its ever expanding whaling operations, Washington never bothered to register a protest over the issue, much less raise it formally in high-level diplomatic meetings.
Several other nations, including Iceland and Norway, have also remained steadfast hold-outs on the whaling issue. But their resistance to annual whale-hunting quotas and their determination to exploit loopholes in the ICRW pales in comparison to Japan’s long history of fierce opposition and outright flaunting of the convention.
Japan’s position on whaling rests, in part, on a largely fictitious portrait of itself as a nation with an inherent cultural “right” to whaling, based, in part, on the presence of aboriginal peoples in its midst. Japan has also made a mockery of the ICRW’s protocol that allows for the limited capture and killing of whales for strictly “scientific research” purposes. Japan’s national whaling research “institute” captures a large number of whales annually beyond what might be reasonably needed for mere “study.” And, after the nominal “research” is conducted, Japan simply kills the whales and then proceeds to sell their blubber and oil on the global market. In other words, Japan’s research on whales is really just a fig leaf for ongoing commercial exploitation.
The lengths to which Japan has gone to denigrate whales as a species are truly extraordinary. Japan has never subscribed to the view widely held in the West — and by science generally — that whales are mammals of superior intelligence and therefore deserving of special protection. In fact, in the Japanese language, the whale is designated with characters that identify it as a “big fish” – and not a mammal at all. Japanese officials regularly point to what they view as the hypocrisy of Western nations killing deer and cows in large numbers for their own consumption without compunction while attacking and stigmatizing Japan as if it were a rogue anti-humanitarian nation for hunting whales. Japan has even suggested that whales prey on other fish species, depleting their stocks, and that killing them to reduce their numbers is no different from stomping on ”cockroaches.” Needless to say this view is not widely shared.
Japan’s departure from the IWC may actually contain a silver lining. It permits the remaining members to focus on continuing efforts to upgrade the IWRC. Over the years, the international community, under growing pressure from the “Save the Whales” movement and NGOs like Greenpeace, has tried to balance commercial and humanitarian concerns. Most nations have not violated the prohibition on hunting whale calves, for example. This, combined with annual quotas and the establishment of regional whale “sanctuaries — like the one in the Indian ocean established in 1979 — and the worldwide temporary moratorium on whaling declared in 1986, has given whales the space to regenerate and to survive.
Indeed, some whale species are thriving again. In early 2021, New Yorkers were shocked to witness the reappearance of humpback whales in the harbor and rivers around Manhattan for the first time in a decade. Still, blithe optimism about the likely survival of whales, in the absence of further global action, is unwarranted. At least 14 individual whale species, including the North American Right whale remain “endangered.” The Blue whale is close to extinction, with just 400 individual members still barely surviving. And the once highly populous sperm whale has declined to one-third of its original numbers. Indeed, a large-scale resumption of commercial whaling, which the IWC has allowed in past years after periods of regeneration, still poses a threat to whale survival across the board. In the face of continued defiance from Japan, Iceland and Norway, there is a pressing and urgent need for additional global intervention.
What should be done? The resumption of the 1986 moratorium, which groups like the World Wildlife Fund have advocated, is unlikely to meet with approval. President Obama, who had endorsed that idea as a candidate, ultimately caved in under pressure from other IWC members. However, much more could be done to create an enforcement mechanism with real teeth. One consensus idea is to establish lower annual quotes for each nation and to eliminate the scientific research loophole. Another is to place international monitors aboard whaling ships as well as whale “counters” and DNA testers at whaling stations to verify numbers and types of catches, in conformity with more rigorous quotas and catch guidelines. Finally, and most intriguingly, subsuming the authority of the IWC under a special U.N. body or an entirely new body that could forge a more global consensus on whaling and allow for stronger enforcement of the Convention beyond the members of the IWC may be warranted.
But where will this bold new leadership come from? Apparently, not from the United States. In early 2023, President Biden, like President Obama, did seek to exert pressure on Japan to join a new Indo-Pacific Cooperation Agreement, but the perceived need to secure Japan’s economic cooperation in the region once again weakened Washington’s resolve. In the end, the administration caved in to steadfast Japanese opposition. Biden had another opportunity to make progress just two months ago when the IWC met in Lima, Peru to discuss the latest proposal to establish a whale “sanctuary” in the South Atlantic – an effort that has consistently failed since it was first proposed in 1998. But the administration — caught up in the turmoil of Biden’s failed re-election bid, and its problematic hand-off to Kamala Harris – became distracted and dropped the ball.
In the absence of more aggressive US leadership, there’s unlikely to be more progress in challenging Japan’s open defiance of the norms of the ICWR. Of course, the incoming Trump administration could try again, on the theory that its aversion to global climate change action might actually weaken Japan’s leverage over Washington on the whaling issue. But that assumes that Trump has a genuine interest in global conservation of any kind. There’s not much evidence that he does, and given his ideological aversion to state-led regulation generally, organizing a global campaign against whaling, even under pressure from advocacy groups, seems highly unlikely.
Still, anti-whaling advocacy shows no sign of abating. Just two weeks ago, the government of Denmark freed Paul Watson, a Japanese anti-whaling activist for which Japan had sought extradition to stand trial, owing to his alleged role in aggressively confronting a Japanese whaling ship back in 2010. Japanese authorities wanted him tried in Japan for allegedly causing serious injury to a crew member. But Denmark rebuffed the request and set Watson free. Denmark, which has no extradition treaty with Japan, decided that Watson wouldn’t get a fair trial in Japan and felt that the charges against him were probably unwarranted. Watson hailed his release and said his time in jail had merely allowed him to continue his fight against Japan and other countries flouting international anti-whaling norms. For Denmark, and for other IWC members, it was a clear shot across the bow of Japan and its aggressive whaling ships.
What lies ahead? The history of the ICRW and the IWC illustrates how difficult it is for a regime born in an era of big-power commercialism and geo-politics to transition to a 21st century globalist perspective based on more universal rights and principles. The original fifteen signatories, all of them active whaling nations, ensured that the framework document was fundamentally about regulating the whaling industry, not about protecting whales per se. Given the obstacles to modifying the basic language of the ICRW, that’s not likely to change anytime soon.
However, with enough political will, fueled by pressure from the WWF and other groups, a future Democratic administration, with or without Japan’s concurrence, could push for profound changes in the way the IWC understands its mandate. Despite its failure this year, the Commission will meet again in two years, consistent with its biennial schedule, to review the condition of whale stocks and to modify conservation measures among the member nations, as appropriate. Its scientific commission, which meets annually, can review the status of whale research, and determine whether whaling even for “research” purposes is still warranted.
Currently, Japan, plus Iceland and Norway, continue to harvest about 44,000 whales annually, but most other nations barely harvest whales at all. In 1980, some 80,000 whales were killed annually worldwide; by 1985 that figure had fallen to 40,000. Today, barely 2,000 whales are killed by all nations combined, for overtly commercial purposes. Even Japan sets an annual quota for its whaling under the fictitious rubric of “research.” The fact is, there is a declining global demand for whale meat, except as a bait source for fishing (mainly for sharks), and whale oil, which was once in high demand to make candles and to power vehicles, has long ago been supplanted by petroleum and other sources. Whale oil is still highly prized by some pharmaceutical companies in the making of its niche products, but it’s hardly an essential commercial ingredient in any one industry.
The upshot? While concern for whales as a steady spur to industrial progress first inspired global action to regulate whaling, it could well be that a continuing shift in the technology of industrial production will help whales survive pressures toward extinction. While some aboriginal peoples do retain compelling reasons to whale hunt locally for basic subsistence purposes, commercial whaling on a mass scale has largely outlived its original rationale. Japan’s assertion of a national prerogative to whale hunt is out of step with the march of international human rights, which includes the rights of other planetary creatures to be free of undue human exploitation. In an era in which climate change and a global pandemic threaten the planet on a heretofore unforeseen scale, it’s time for the international community to articulate a fundamental new vision for how humanity as a whole relates to Nature – and therefore, to herself.
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