Japan and the Whales

The sanctions ordered against Japan for its continued whaling operations will not save any whales this season, but they may ultimately win more cooperation from the Japanese in this international conservation program.

Japan will make much of the fact that it is acting within its treaty rights, and so it is. Under the whaling agreement, each nation reserved a sovereign right to determine its own research program, and it is under that clause that Japan is currently killing 300 Minke whales in the Antarctic.

Other nations have accepted a role for the international scientific committee in determining what whaling for scientific research might be carried on, now that the world moratorium on commercial whaling is in place. And it is Japan’s defiance of a continuing review of its whaling proposal that has drawn the U.S. response. Two other nations, Norway and Iceland, have pending proposals for scientific catches and are reportedly cooperating with the scientific committee in setting appropriate limits.

Japan had been given fair warning that the United States would impose sanctions if the Japanese whalers proceeded with their operations before the results of a vote by the International Whaling Commission were known. The results have now been tabulated. A majority disapproved of Japan’s plan.

But the Japanese fleet did not wait for the votes to be counted. It began its kill on Jan. 17, thus undermining the authority of the International Whaling Commission. The Japanese originally had proposed taking 825 Minke and 50 sperm whales. This was revised to 300 Minkes and no sperm whales in the face of serious uncertainties on the part of world scientists. But now Tokyo has made clear that it will make no further concessions and will ignore the new vote of opposition.

The sanctions ordered by the United States in conformity with American law--a cut in the Japanese fishing quota in American waters--will have no immediate effect because the quota had been eliminated after an earlier dispute over allegations of overcatching and restrictive trade measures. Additional sanctions--limiting imports of Japanese seafood products--are possible. Ultimately the sanctions could have significant economic effects on the Japanese fishing industry, whose exports to the United States were valued at $380 million in the first 11 months of last year.

Japan’s defiance of the international community on whaling is the more to be regretted because so many concessions had been granted to Japan as commercial whaling was phased out. The taking of 300 Minkes will not endanger the species in the short run. But the defiance of international standards could in the long run.