An Alternative Explanative of Japan's Whaling Diplomacy in the Post-Moratorium Era
![handle is hein.journals/intwlp10 and id is 57 raw text is: Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy, 10:55-87, 2007 Routledge
Copyright 0 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Taylor& Francis Group
ISSN: 1388-0292 print / 1548-1476 online
DOI: 10.1080/13880290701229911
An Alternative Explanation of Japan's
Whaling Diplomacy in the
Post-Moratorium Era
ATSUSHI ISHII'
AYAKO OKUBO'
1. INTRODUCTION
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has been one of the few
negotiation arenas where Japan is at the center of world attention. Japan
is the only major whaling nation that must negotiate with the anti-whaling
nations to lift the 1982 moratorium before resuming commercial whaling
under the auspices of the International Convention for the Regulation of
Whaling (ICRW). Japan's whaling diplomacy has thus attracted the attention
of not only the IWC participants but also numerous scholars who are struggling
to explain the underlying reasons for Japan's behavior in the IWC and its
rejection of the anti-whaling norm.2 Many scholars are motivated by the need
to explain what appears to be an exception to the general perception that Japan
is amenable to gaiatsu [foreign pressure].' Robert Friedheim, for example,
says Japan's behavior is inexplicable in that Japanese representatives seemed
Atsushi Ishii, Associate Professor, Tohoku University, 41, Kawauchi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.
E-mail: ishii@cneas.tohoku.ac.jp. Ayako Okubo, Research Fellow, Ocean Policy Research Foundation,
Kaiyo Senpaku Bldg., 1-15-16, Toranomon, Minato-Ku, Tokyo, Japan. E-mail: a-okubo@sof.or.jp. We
are very much grateful to Robert L. Brownell, David McNeill, Junko Sakurai, and Shahei Yonemoto
for their very helpful comments and letting us share their resources. David McNeill also contributed
significantly by copyediting the draft version of this article. We are also very grateful to Anders Blok,
Toshio Kasuya, and Tetsu Sato for their very valuable comments. The financial supports by Grants-in-Aid
for Scientific Research (ref. no. 17310025) of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and The
Nippon Foundation are thankfully acknowledged.
2 RL. Friedheim, Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice: Explaining Japan's Failure in the International
Whaling Negotiations, 27 OCEAN DEV. & INT'L LAW 349 (1996); A. Wong, The Roots of Japan's
International Environmental Politics (2001); M. Danaher, Why Japan Will not Give Up Whaling,
14 PACIFICA REVIEW 103 (2002); K. Hirata, Beached Whales: Examining Japan's Rejection of an
International Norm, 7 Soc. SCI. JAPAN J. 177 (2004); 1. Miyaoka, Legitimacy in International Society:
Japan's Reaction to Global Wildlife Preservation (2004); K. Hirata, Why Japan Supports Whaling, 8 J.
INT'L WILDLIFE LAW & POL'Y 129 (2005).
Throughout the article, English translations of Japanese words are given in brackets. Additionally,
English translations of the titles and quotations from references in Japanese are tentative translations by
the authors.
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An Alternative Explanative of Japan's Whaling Diplomacy in the Post-Moratorium Era
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