Analyzing Possible Causes of the Inefficiency of International Whaling Regimes Using Japan as a CaseStudy

• Main Authors: Chin-Chi Zhang, 張芹綺
• Other Authors: Dr. W. Emily CHOW
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/02129346657643733606

碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 國際事務研究所碩士班 === 98 === Wildlife animal’s slow reproduction rate and human exploitation had accelerated the speed of animal extinction, and conservation of animals near the brink of extinction had thus became the most concerned topic in countries world-wide. The International Whaling Commission was established in 1946 based on the “International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling”. Aware of the drastic decrease in the number of whales due to massive whaling activities, the International Whaling Commission hoped to maintain a certain quantity of whales as well as protect the whales and manage the whaling business by international coordination and collaboration. In the Convention, whaling is allowed only for scientific and research purposes. However, justified in the name of science, countries such as Japan, Iceland and Norway exploited the name for commercial whale trade, which is clearly an act of violation of rules stipulated by the Convention. Each year in the South Pole whale conservation area, Japan would hunt whales in the name of science and had thus became a subject of protests raised by other membership countries such as New Zealand and Australia. During the recent years, violent conflicts between Japanese whaling boats and environmental protection organizations were encountered on a frequent basis. The arrest of protestors by the Japanese government had Australia filed an international lawsuit against Japan with growing heat to the conflict. Topic on whale conservation matched the definition of International Regimes. This study uses Professor Peter K.H. YU’s theory on International Regimes in its examination on International Whaling Commission and attempts to sort out the possible factors which cause the inefficiency of International Regimes through disputes raised by Japan’s whaling behavior. Results from this study show that at the international/global level, people’s vi concepts and decision-making process failed to match the regime criteria presented by Peter K.H. YU, such as different understanding of the issue from different membership countries failed to reach an all-around scope as expected, as well as the violation of an open and transparent decision-making/voting process. In addition, at the mechanism (Japan’s) level, topics, people’s concepts and the process of execution also failed to match YU’s definition. For example, lack of urgency, divergent domestic concepts towards the whaling issue and traditional/cultural issues all led to the inefficiency of the International Whaling Regimes.