【捕鯨】日本政府がNYTに寄稿したIWC脱退批判への反論全文(日本語訳)
ブログ主の覚え書きとして。
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO39959510S9A110C1000000/
外務省、米NYT紙の社説に反論 日本の捕鯨巡り
北米 2019/1/12 8:13
【米州総局】外務省は11日、米紙ニューヨーク・タイムズ(NYT)が掲載した日本の国際捕鯨委員会(IWC)脱退を批判した社説に対する反論を同紙に寄稿した。「日本は鯨の保護に献身的」との見出しで、同紙の社説には「重要な事実が書かれていなかった」と指摘。日本は「国際法に基づいた行動を取っている」と強調した。
寄稿は大菅岳史外務報道官名義。日本のみを非難の的とするのは「不公平」で、日本の伝統・産業保護の懸念を軽視するのは無礼だと批判した。
NYT紙は日本政府が2018年12月26日にIWCからの脱退を表明したことを受け、同月31日付で「日本、鯨の虐殺を中止せよ」との見出しの社説を電子版に掲載した。IWC脱退を「危険で愚かな動き」とし、「国家主義的な政治家の策略以外の何物でもない」と批判。トランプ米大統領の「石炭産業の保護」や多国間主義の拒絶と同様の動きだと指摘していた。
反論全文。
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/opinion/letters/japan-whaling.html
‘Japan Is Committed to the Conservation of Whales’
The Japanese government takes issue with an editorial.
Jan. 11, 2019
To the Editor:
A Dec. 31 editorial about whaling didn’t mention critical facts.
First, Japan is committed to the conservation of whales. It sets strict catch limits based on scientific methodology established by the International Whaling Commission. This ensures the sustainability of all whale species Japan will catch for hundreds of years. As you recognized, not all whale species are endangered. Japan prohibits the hunting of those that are.
Second, Japan’s actions fully comply with international law. Whaling is limited to Japan’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, where it has the sovereign right to use the living resources. There is no general international prohibition on whaling.
Japan respected the whaling commission’s 1986 “moratorium” on whaling for over 30 years, before exercising its legal right to withdraw from the I.W.C. at the end of 2018. It did so reluctantly, after concluding that the moratorium, which was adopted as a temporary measure, had become permanent mainly because of the politically motivated objection not based on scientific facts by some member states rather than legitimate environmental concerns.
Third, whaling has been a part of Japanese culture for centuries, just as it has been in Norway, Iceland and Denmark, and among indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada, who continue to engage in it.
It is unfair to single out Japan. And it is offensive to dismiss Japan’s concern for protection of its own cultural heritage and the industry closely related to it as a “gambit by nationalist politicians” motivated by “short-term political gain.”
Takeshi Osuga
Tokyo
The writer is press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.
* * * *
【ブログ主の訳】
まず、我が国はクジラの保護に取り組んでおり、それは国際捕鯨委員会によって確立された科学的方法論に基づき、厳密に漁獲制限を設定たものである。これは日本が今後何百年もの間捕獲する全鯨種の持続可能性を保障する。ご存知のように、全ての鯨種が絶滅の危機に瀕しているわけではない。日本はそれらの捕獲は禁止している。
次に、日本が行っている活動は国際法に完全に準拠している。捕鯨は日本の200マイルの排他的経済地帯内に限られており、そこでは生物資源を使用する主権を有している。そこでの捕鯨に関し、一般的且つ国際的に禁止されているものではない。
日本は、2018年末にIWCからの撤退の法的権利を行使するまで、捕鯨委員会の1986年捕鯨モラトリアムを30年以上にわたって尊重してきた。が、今や、一時的措置として採択されたはずのモラトリアムが永久的なものになってしまったと結論づけた。それは、正当な環境問題ではなく、一部の加盟国による科学的事実に基づかない政治的動機にのための異議申立てが理由である。
第三に、捕鯨は何世紀にも渡る日本文化の一部である。それはノルウェーやアイスランド、デンマーク、そして米国とカナダの先住民族の間で行われているものと同様である。
日本だけに非難を向けるのは不公平である。また、日本独自の文化的遺産及びそれに密接に関係する産業の保護という問題を、「短期的な政治上の利益」を目的とした「民族主義的政治家による策略」などとして切り捨てるような行為は不快である。
下は、反論の対象であるニューヨークタイムズの社説。
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/editorials/japan-whale-hunt-whaling.html?module=inline
Opinion
Japan: Stop Slaughtering Whales
There is no commercial, cultural or scientific justification for killing these magnificent creatures.
By The Editorial Board
The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.
Dec. 31, 2018
Japan, in many respects a model global citizen, has long been an outlier on whaling, an industry that most nations have abandoned as cruel, unnecessary and a danger to the survival of the great mammals of the seas, but that the Japanese claim as part of their culture. That divide has come to a head with Japan’s exit from the International Whaling Commission, a politically motivated decision Tokyo should reconsider.
Japan’s argument is that the commission was set up in 1946 to manage commercial whaling, not to ban it. After global populations of whales plummeted in the 1970s, the commission ordered a moratorium that went into effect in 1986 and looks to continue it indefinitely, despite intensive lobbying by Japan and other countries that defend commercial whaling, most notably Norway and Iceland.
In reality, Japan always flouted the moratorium, using a loophole that allowed “scientific research” to continue slaughtering thousands of minke, fin and sperm whales far from its shores and selling their meat on the domestic market.
That charade ends with Japan’s withdrawal from the whaling commission, which is good news for whales off Antarctica, since Japan said it would limit commercial whaling to its own territorial waters. This portion of Japan’s decision was welcomed by Australia, which has supported sanctuaries to protect Antarctic whale populations and which challenged Japan’s “scientific research” in the International Court of Justice in 2014. Australia won, but Japan made some cosmetic changes and kept hunting. The environmental organization Sea Shepherd, which has actively interfered with Japan’s annual hunt in the Southern Ocean, said Japan has now effectively declared itself a “pirate whaling nation” instead of pretending to abide by international rules, and so would be easier to challenge.
Just as Japan’s claim that it was conducting scientific research was a myth, so is the notion that commercial whaling is somehow central to Japanese identity. Hunting whales for food and oil does have a history in Japan, and in the years after World War II, whale meat had a major place in the diet of a conquered and impoverished nation. And not all species of whales are endangered, though the populations of some, like the blue and right whales, are at worrisome levels. Commercial whaling, moreover, is not the greatest threat faced by whales so long as the moratorium is in place — collisions with ships, getting tangled in fishing nets, pollution and other human activities are currently far greater dangers.
But as in most other former whaling regions, the Japanese taste for whale meat has sharply declined over the decades. A survey conducted in 2012 by the Nippon Research Center on behalf of the International Fund for Animal Welfare found that nearly 90 percent of Japanese had not bought whale meat in the previous year, and only about a quarter of Japanese supported whaling. As of 2013, the Japanese whaling industry employed fewer than 1,000 people and required government subsidies to survive. That is hardly equivalent to the cultural importance of whale hunting in indigenous communities in Alaska or Greenland, which the whaling commission allows.
But the fact is that most of the world — and most Japanese — have moved on from the days when killing whales was deemed an acceptable pursuit. Like shooting elephants or rhinoceroses for trophies, cruelly killing animals now shown to possess a high level of intelligence on the pretense that the practice has a cultural importance is untenable. Japan, moreover, has not said how many whales it plans to catch in its waters, or what impact this might have on global whale populations.
In the end, the Japanese government’s decision to quit the commission is no more than a gambit by nationalist politicians to posture as defenders of a traditional way of life, akin to President Trump’s defense of coal mining. They know it won’t bring back an industry that has had its day, or a diet that nobody needs any longer.
Withdrawing from the whaling commission for short-term political gain is a dangerous and foolish move, especially for an advanced country like Japan that has generally supported multilateral efforts on the environment. The commission is not a Western cultural imposition, as some Japanese nationalists might portray it, but the expression of a universal obligation to manage dwindling resources and protect the planet, including the magnificent giants of the oceans.
Mr. Trump’s cavalier rejection of the Paris climate treaty and dismissive attitude to most other international treaties, alliances and trade accords have done incalculable damage to the postwar international order. That is not a model Japan should emulate.
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