An Analysis Of The Motives Of Illegal Whaling In Japanese Government

From 19 th century, the unrestricted whaling have made the global whale reserves almost dried up. In the mid-1940 s, the International Whaling Commission as the core of the international whaling regulation mechanism arises at this historic moment. However, for quite a long time, the regulating mechanism have still limited to function. Until the 1970 s, the "New Management Procedures" and "International Decade for Cetacean Research" started a new age of what whale protection witnesses progress. In 1982, the Ban on Commercial Whaling passed, which is an important achievement in the field of protecting whales for the international community. But in the name of scientific whaling, Japan still kept on illegal whaling.Scholars tend to interpret the root of illegal whaling in Japan from three viewpoints: The first is focusing on the defects of international regulating mechanism of whaling; The second is the extensive chain of domestic interests; The third is the tradition of whaling and eating whale meat. But in this paper, I will focus on the factor of governmental decision-making, and the three kinds of explanations above are not the causes of Japanese government continuing to support its illegal whaling. The root is related to internal function of Japanese government decision-making and the relevant decision-makers who are in the dominant position in the whole process of making decision. Whaling supporter the whalers agencies occupies the dominant position in the decision-making body and relevant decision-making position body can’t be replaced. This factor seriously affects Japanese government’s policy of supporting illegal whaling.