Introduction
Given that the ocean produces between 50 to 85 percent of the world’s oxygen, ¬analysing the threats to its continued wellbeing and countering them is critical to ensure the livelihood of all living things. Whales are a key part of this ecosystem with their ability to “regulate the flow of food by helping to maintain a stable food chain” . However, whales have historically been a part of many cultures and exploited for the resources such as oil, whale blubber and bones. After the Industrial Revolution, the exploitation of these animals also grew to industrial levels which was unsustainable due to their low reproduction rates. In response to this the International Whaling Commission was set up in 1946 to “provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry”.
For some cultures, like the Japanese, whales have continued to be a major part in their society by providing essential resources, jobs and economic opportunities. In the past decade a major scandal focusing on Japanese whalers using loopholes in international law has been spread across the news, especially in Australia. Sea Shepherd (SS) is a conservation group which has controversially used direct-action tactics to achieve their environmental goals, one of which is to stop this whaling. These tactics were best displayed in the 2007 clash between SS and Japanese whaling ships.
This particular political issue holds interest to me as it has an impact on Australia and my plans to join the Navy. The issue also has several inter-linkages to the units of ‘Power and Sovereignty’ and ‘Peace and Conflict’. This is due to the complicated relationship between the whalers, SS and international law. However, their use of force against one another breaks Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states “All human beings…. should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” . In this report, I aim to understand the different justifications and legalities behind this conflict over whales.
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Explanation of Engagement Activity
I corresponded with several people to experimentally find out what I hoped to be some conflicting views. First, I emailed Brooke Mills, who is a Chapter Coordinator at SS. She expressed the view that what Sea Shepherd does abides by international law by following the UN World Charter for Nature which is available under Appendix 1 ; however, I have selected the key parts to this investigation.
20. Military activities damaging to nature shall be avoided.
21. States and, to the extent they are able, other public authorities, international organizations, individuals, groups and corporations shall:
a. Co-operate in the task of conserving nature through common activities and other relevant actions, including information exchange and consultations;
b. Establish standards for products and manufacturing processes that may have adverse effects on nature, as well as agreed methodologies for assessing these effects;
c. Implement the applicable international legal provisions for the conservation of nature and the protection of the environment;
d. Ensure that activities within their jurisdictions or control do not cause damage to the natural systems located within other States or in the areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction;
e. Safeguard and conserve nature in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
22. Taking fully into account the sovereignty of States over their natural resources, each State shall give effect to the provisions of the present Charter through its competent organs and in co-operation with other States.
From here, she argued the legalities of SS’s actions as they tried to co-operate with states but “some are very against” working with them. It made me think of the relationship between states and NGOs, which can often be strenuous over many different factors. Whilst SS may appear as benign and generous to some countries whilst also appearing malevolent and destructive to others. Also, my previous understanding of SS centred around their conflict with the Japanese whalers, but Mrs Mills explained that one of SS’s main activities was documenting when international laws were not upheld. This prompted me to find the story of the longest ship chase, where SS’s Bob Barker chased the “the world’s most notorious poaching ship, The Thunder 16,000 kilometres from Antarctica to the west coast of Africa. However, story’s major peaceful success was not as well publicised relative to the unsuccessful clash with the whalers. This made me think further about how the justifications and legalities of an issue can affect the way in which the media portrays it. The more dramatic a political issue is, the more media attention it gets. This media attention affects the way in which the states respond to the issue, which can be a change in related laws or policies. Therefore, the issue itself can influence the outcome.
The second person I corresponded with was Ray Griggs, who used to work as the Australian Chief of Navy (2011-2014) and the Vice Chief of the Defence Force (2014-2018). He gave me insight to the legalities of SS’s actions at sea and said “they were unacceptable as a mariner. They use techniques dangerous to both parties”. However, Mr Griggs was in support of the work that they do to preserve the environment. He brought up many legal procedures in identifying what laws SS are subject to. SS as a whole is subject to NGO laws, but each of its ships is subject to its state’s, designation’s, location’s and worker’s laws at all times. Therefore, whilst there are fewer people around to enforce laws at sea, there are more laws restricting those people, contrary to popular belief. I then concluded that some of SS’s actions at sea are illegal. Once legal example was the clash between Steve Irwin and Nisshin Maru, where the latter was the overtaking boat. Rule 13 of the IMO’s International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 states “the overtaking vessel should keep out of the way of the vessel being overtaken”. In this case, the Nisshin Maru’s actions were illegal. On the other hand, SS’s violation of a US court order to stay 500 feet away from Japanese whalers is an example of their illegal actions.
The third person I interviewed about this was Miranda Kennedy-Hine, a young SS land-based volunteer. She had a fairly central view about the legalities of their actions, saying that SS’s actions were legal only in response to the whaler’s violation of international law. This got me thinking about how SS could act ‘in response’ (regarding the ways they can twist that definition) and how they can justify their use of force in doing so. Thus, SS can rearrange the legalities of their actions with their justifications.
Finally, I interviewed Scott Clementz, the Director of Parks Australia. He argued that SS direct-action tactics were illegal and unjustified, but that their other work was legal and justified. Following that, when I suggested that SS uses extreme tactics to attract attention to themselves and the issue they are fighting, Mr Clementz agreed. However, he went on further to say that SS doesn’t really engage in issues past the initial raising-awareness stage. I found this interesting and did more research on this subject. My findings proved this statement to be surprisingly false. But on further inspection, SS has a specific organisation arm called SS Legal that promotes litigation and policy development which was founded in 2014. This arm of SS has not received nearly as much attention as the direct-action volunteers. Thus, by having this arm, SS can hire highly skilled law professionals such as Brett Sommermeyer, to ensure their actions are legal, reinforcing their justifications.
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Analysis of the issue
Prior to conducting these interviews, I had a basic understanding of maritime and international law. I also did not understand the implications of SS’s work in promoting animal rights. Now that I am more informed, the justifications and legalities of their work can be categorized by the following elements:
1) Greed vs Grievance
2) International Rights
3) NGO’s vs States
Greed vs Grievance
The two main parties to this conflict, Japan and SS, both hold different grievances for each other. SS sees on preventing Japanese whaling as protecting humanity’s future. Without a stable marine environment, the food sources and natural process they provide would threaten humanity with extinction. Paul Watson puts it as “And if the oceans die, then civilization collapses and we all die” This is SS’s justification to take such serious direct-action against environmentally damaging activities. On the other hand, Japan sees whales as a part of their history and day-to-day livelihood in the form of food sources. Their interpretation of SS’s anti-whaling actions is that a part of their national identity and sovereignty is then being threatened, which they must defend.
Whilst the greed factor is relatively simple for Japan, who want to sell more whale meat for profit than they are allowed by international law, it is not as simple for SS itself. SS has no economic need for whales to not be killed as they receive donations for their work. But it is these donations that fuel SS’s greed. By using their extreme tactics and publicity to gain the donations, the business becomes profitable for its senior paid members. Thus, the greed factor for SS is on the individual members of SS who are paid a salary between $30,000 to $60,000. Paul Watson himself is paid a salary of $96,000 said “I brought in $180,000 last year in appearance fees and royalties, which I gave back.” Thus, the more popular the business is, the more profitable the business becomes. A diagram containing more about SS receives its funding is under Appendix 2.
International Rights
As stated by Ms Mills, SS uses the UN World Charter for Nature to legally justify their actions in protecting the maritime environments. But there are also many other international laws that aim to regulate and increase whale populations such as the CAMLAR Convention . This particular example covers the Antarctic Treaty and the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling Schedule (ICRW). Although there is a footnote from the ICRW Schedule stating that Japan could still hunt minke whales, they are still subject to the International Court of Justice’s ruling of 2014. This ruling stated that Japan’s use of scientific laws to continue commercial whaling did not meet the requirements of scientific whaling and was thus illegal.
To link this back to the UN Charter for Nature, I have explained below how some of the Japanese government’s funding violates international rights. The Japanese government’s Fiscal Year 2011’s allocation of $28.550 million is to “stabilize the lethal cetacean capture research in the Antarctic Ocean and enhance safety measure against anti-whaling groups.” This is 63% of the Fisheries Agency of Japan $45.349 million subsidy, which means that most of the money that goes into “scientific whaling” is to kill whales and to protect their haul from groups like SS. Thus, the government’s specific allocation of money and military resources to combat SS violates the UN mandate points 20 and 21a.
NGOs vs States
SS’s relationship with the Australian and Japanese governments are characterised by SS being ignored. Whilst Japan’s media reports favour pro-whaling news stories heavily, 70% of Australian media whaling stories are anti-whaling. However, this has not influenced the government. For example PMs like Kevin Rudd, went back on their promises to take legal action to stop them. Australia does not take legal action against Japan because of the expanding trade and security ties between the two states and does not want to jeopardise that relationship crumbling. This signifies a prioritisation of both governments to make profit for themselves which is further established in Japan’s increasing funding for the whalers and Australia’s reduction of the environmental budget. Both governments are using soft economic power to try and reduce the impact which SS has on their legitimacy. Whilst the legalities of these actions by the governments may fall into the legal category, the documenting mission that Australia took back in 2008 found Japanese whalers illegally fishing in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
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Evaluation
My interviews with members of various organisations highlighted some key aspects in my global politics course and my understanding of real global politics.
In looking at the legalities behind this political issue, I found SS commits many legal and illegal actions relating to many different laws and for this reason it is hard to pinpoint which is which, thus causing the controversy on their side. However, from my investigation it appears that SS has numerous laws supporting their actions. For the Japanese, whilst they have a history in whaling dating back to before these laws were created, they still have to follow them. And even though they have objected to and avoided restrictions of their whaling activities, their overall abuse of NGOs and international law leads me to conclude that a larger degree of Japan’s actions were illegal.
By taking my interviewee’s perspectives, I can see that SS’s actions are controversial depending on what point of view you hold. The justifications of SS and Japan’s actions can be classified using Galtung’s triangle, where they hold latent level differences under contradiction and assumptions which results in the way their behaviour manifests itself. The justifications both sides have hold true in their own perspectives as they both feel wronged by the other. To lay out the different perspectives, liberals could view SS as a progressive force for change and Japan as the state holding them back. Although, they might see their use of force as excessive and unnecessary, quite similar to Mr Griggs perspective. A pacifist would see SS’s and Japan’s use of direct-action tactics as wrong without excuse. And finally, a realist would view Japan’s exerting of their influence as a natural feature of state power over SS. In conclusion, the view taken justifications of SS’s and Japan’s action depends on the political stance of the observer.