Under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), the IWC established a global ban on commercial whaling. Article VIII, Section 1 creates an exemption, however, providing that:
... any Contracting Government may grant to any of its nationals a special permit authorizing that national to kill, take and treat whales for purposes of scientific research subject to such restrictions as to number and subject to such other conditions as [that] Government thinks fit.
Any whales taken under these special permits shall so far as practicable be processed and the proceeds shall be dealt with in accordance with directions issued by the Government by which the permit was granted.
Since its establishment, the institute has been granted annual catch quotas by the Government of Japan to carry out its research. The whale meat, which is by definition a by-product of the research, is sold for domestic consumption in accordance with the convention.
From 1988 through the first half of 2011, a total of 13,663 whales have been caught by the ICR under the above exemption for scientific research. Of those, 3,573 whales have been taken in the North Pacific Ocean, and 10,090 have been taken in the Southern Ocean, an area which in 1994 was designated as the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary by the IWC.
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In March 2014 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Japan to cease the JARPA II programme stating that its Antarctic whaling was in contravention of the IWC moratoria 10(e) and 10(d).
Controversy
Several environmental groups and governments oppose the Japanese research program, claiming it to be "a disguise for commercial whaling".
Disputes over research
The Institute of Cetacean Research has been reported to have "produced virtually no research of any regard" and has only two peer-reviewed papers since 2005.
In an open letter to the Japanese government, published in 2002 in the New York Times and sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 21 scientists declared that they "believe Japan's whale "research" program fails to meet minimum standards for credible science". They were "concerned that Japan's whaling program is not designed to answer scientific questions relevant to the management of whales; that Japan refuses to make the information it collects available for independent review; and that its research program lacks a testable hypothesis or other performance indicators consistent with accepted scientific standards". They accused Japan of "using the pretense of scientific research to evade its commitments to the world community".
The Institute of Cetacean Research responded by pointing out that it has produced numerous peer-reviewed articles on cetacean science, criticised the open letter as a case of scientists making judgments outside their own area of speciality, and raised concern about their responsibility as academics to the public. The ICR further noted that the letter contained numerous errors of science and law, reflecting the level of care taken by the scientists endorsing the letter.
A WWF official responded in the same journal, pointing out that "identical criticisms of Japanese whaling had been published by expert whale biologists on the International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee" and that three of the letter's authors defending the Japanese programs had failed to disclose significant financial and organizational ties to the whaling industry.
In the same issue, twenty members of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission confirmed "that the signers of the open letter correctly summarized criticisms made by researchers very familiar with Japanese scientific whaling", a fact omitted by the letter's critics, "betraying a selectiveness that pervades their article". According to them, "so little of any significance to IWC management can be obtained only from whaling catches that it is impossible to justify killing animals on this basis".
The International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee has repeatedly expressed concern for the objectives and results obtained by the ICR. In a resolution in 2007, the IWC noted that "none of the goals of JARPA 1 had been reached, and that the results of the JARPA 1 [Japanese Whale Research Program under Special Permit in the Antarctic] programme are not required for management under the RMP [Revised Management Procedure]" and called upon the Japanese government "to address the 31 recommendations listed in [the Scientific Committee's JARPA 1 report] to the satisfaction of the Scientific Committee" and "to suspend indefinitely the lethal aspects of JARPA II conducted within the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary".
In 2008 the ICR was criticized by anti-whaling proponents when photographs released by the Australian government showed pictures of the ICR harpoon ship Yushin Maru killing several different whales, and a whale and her calf being taken on board the Nisshin Maru for processing The Australian government used that opportunity to voice their disbelief of the ICR's scientific research claims:"The scientists who have considered carefully the material that has been put forward by Japanese scientists in the past, making some claim that their whaling is scientific, have found that it is without foundation.... You do not have to kill a whale in the Southern Ocean to gain a deeper understanding of it."
Animal rights groups such as Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have repeatedly attacked the institute's vessels and personnel while carrying out their duties. In 2010, an employee of the institute reportedly sustained chemical burns to his face from a butyric acid projectile launched by a member of the Sea Shepherd organisation.
On December 17, 2012, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction against Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd and any party acting in concert with them from physically attacking any person or vessel of the Institute of Cetacean Research and requiring them to stay at least 500 yd (457 m) from their vessels.
On March 31, 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan's whaling program was not for scientific purposes and forbade the granting of further permits. The court's judges agreed with Australia that the number of Japanese scientific research publications were not proportionate to the number of animals killed. Two former Australian Environment ministers applauded the decision and stated their hopes that Japan will respect it. The decision of the ICJ is final and the right of appeal does not apply in this context. Japan said it would abide by the decision.
In November 2014, Japan announced that it would resume hunting whales in the Southern Ocean but that it would reduce its catch target by two-thirds. Japan's Fisheries Agency said that Japan intends to catch 333 minke whales each year between 2015 and 2027, down from 935 minke and 50 fin whales. It said the hunts were needed for collecting scientific data and were exempt from a 1986 international ban on commercial whaling. The plan also included a defined 12-year period for research, in response to criticism from the ICJ of the previous open-ended research plans. In January 2015, the Japanese Fisheries Agency announced that the ICR was launching a non-lethal whale research programme until March 28. In 2017, the researchers at Catacean Research killed 333 minke whales in the name of whale research program, 67% of which were pregnant.
Financial subsidies
There are estimates by the World Wildlife Fund that the Japanese government has had to invest US$12 million into the 2008-2009 hunt alone just to break even, and that subsidies in total have amounted to approximately US$150 million between 1988 and 2010.
In 2011, the ICR was provided US$29 million in financial assistance from the earthquake recovery fund, a supplementary budget of US$230 billion passed by the Japanese Government for reconstruction after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The funding was provided to increase security for the whaling fleet in light of increasing attacks by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and justified by the Japan Fisheries Agency as providing support to the whaling industry as a whole, including some whaling towns along the devastated northeast coast. No foreign or donated funds were used.
Following the September 2018 Florianopolis Declaration where the IWC rejected Japan's latest commercial hunt proposal and concluded that the purpose of the IWC is the conservation of whales, Japan withdrew its IWC membership on December 26, 2018. It then resumed commercial hunting in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone on July 1, 2019, but ceased whaling activities in the Antarctic Ocean. Japan expects to hunt 227 minke whales by the end of 2019, but without government subsidies, their whaling industry is not expected to survive. A subsidy of 5.1 billion yen (US$47.31 million) was budgeted for commercial whaling in 2019. ICR activities continue.
