The International Management of Aboriginal Whaling

Japanese Small Type Coastal Whaling

“…While STCW does have a long tradition in parts of Japan and is different in nature and scale from modern commercial whaling, it is also quite distinct from whaling for the purpose of nutritional and cultural subsistence that is conducted by indigenous people in remote, and typically harsh, environments for their local consumption (IWC, 2015b). Indeed, the framers of the ICRW explicitly recognized the needs of such indigenous people in both the final act of the convention and its first schedule (Tillman, 2008), establishing a legal mandate for the regulation of ASW that the IWC has exercised ever since. The IWC was not persuaded that Japan's STCW hunt should be treated like ASW and exempted from the moratorium.…”