It's difficult to know how to react to Japan's decision to leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and to recommence commercial whaling, a decision they made public on 24th December 2018 (Merry Christmas, whales), perhaps hoping to avoid too much press attention and push-back.
On the one hand, any undermining of the IWC is unfortunate and to be censured. The organization was set up back in 1946 to address the over-fishing of whales of all kinds, and "to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry". However, as whale "stocks" continued to decline, the IWC imposed a complete moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, which has been observed ever since. And sure enough, the numbers of many species of whales have indeed recovered in spectacular fashion, although several species are still vulnerable, endangered or critically enangered.
Japan, however, feels that there has been too much conservation and not enough development, and has done its best to erode the IWC's mandate, most egregiously by exploiting a loophole in the moratorium which allows for the killing of whales for "scientific research". Japan kills about 300 whales a year, ostensibly in the interests of science (although the anatomy of whales is actually well understood - what we really need more science on is their social activities, which of course requires live whales in their natural habitats), and the resulting carcasses just happen to be sold in the fish markets of Tokyo and Osaka. No-one is under any illusions about Japan's real reasons, and even the International Court of Justice has called on Japan to stop this activity, although to no avail.
Not satisfied with this underhand activity, though, Japan has now decided to officially leave the IWC, setting a dangerous precedent. They will join fellow whaling mavericks Norway and Iceland in re-establishing a commercial whaling fleet, although only within Japanese territorial waters, thus leaving the sensitive Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary intact, which is at least something. Whether this will result in more or fewer whale deaths remains to be seen.
Japan has always insisted that whaling and the consumption of whale meat is an important cultural practice in Japan, but just because something was done historically is no reason to continue doing it (c.f. slavery, foot binding, etc, etc). In practice, the demand for whale products is falling fast, and, bizarrely, the main impetus for whale hunting may be coming from governments departments scared of having their budgets cut. Maybe the practice will self-destruct all on its own, but somehow I am loath to trust this one to the virtues of the capitalist system.
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