KASAHARA: JAPANESE DISTANT-WATER FISHERIES 



tion principle prohibits fishing by Japan in the 

 eastern half of the North Pacific and Bering Sea. 

 Catches of Asian salmon, on the other hand, 

 have been shared by the Soviet Union and Japan. 

 A system of product distribution has been ap- 

 plied to the harvesting of North Pacific fur seals. 



Along with the general trend of extension of 

 coastal jurisdiction, there will also be a contin- 

 uing trend for more bilateral and multilateral 

 fishery agreements between the nations directly 

 concerned. International agreements solely for 

 conservation, that is, for the purpose of maxi- 

 mizing the total catch, have become less and less 

 attractive to most nations, and emphasis has 

 shifted to arrangements combining systems of 

 allocation with conservation measures. The 

 question of national quotas, particularly for the 

 heavily exploited stocks, will undoubtedly become 

 one of the most critical issues of fishery negoti- 

 ations in the future. National quota systems are 

 now being discussed even by some of the inter- 

 national commissions which originally did not 

 envisage them, as is the case with the Inter- 

 American Tropical Tuna Commission or the In- 

 ternational Commission for the Northwest At- 

 lantic Fisheries. There is no established set of 

 principles as to how the allowable total catch 

 from a stock or stocks should be divided among 

 the nations exploiting such a stock or stocks in 

 waters beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, 

 nor as to what allowance should be made for new 

 entry. 



It is not very likely that the Law of the Sea 

 Conference would come up with any specific 

 formula to divide the limited catch. It is pos- 

 sible, however, that discussions at the confer- 

 ence might result in the general acceptance of 

 the establishment of national quotas as a prin- 

 ciple of international regulation of fisheries with- 

 out spelling out details to implement it (such 

 details would be left to bilateral or multilateral 

 agreements between the countries concerned) . 



In any case, changes likely to take place in 

 the regimes for regulation of fisheries, with a 

 predominant trend for extension of national jur- 

 isdiction by coastal states, may result in more in- 

 ternational negotiations rather than less. In 

 many parts of the world, such as Southeast Asia, 

 the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, the South 



Pacific Islands, West Africa, or even in much 

 of Europe, the question of determining the 

 boundaries between areas of national jurisdic- 

 tion of neighboring states would become enor- 

 mously complicated and, in some cases, might 

 never be solved. Negotiations for the handling 

 of historical rights of noncoastal states, as well 

 as of neighboring coastal states, in the extended 

 area of national jurisdiction of each state, would 

 also take time. In many regions, regional ar- 

 rangements of various kinds would have to be 

 negotiated among neighboring coastal states to 

 accommodate each other's fishing activity. With- 

 out such arrangements, the development of the 

 fisheries of coastal states would be hampered 

 greatly, and the proper management of stocks 

 of fish crossing several national boundaries 

 would become impossible. In the present polit- 

 ical environment, I doubt that the countries con- 

 cerned could agree to a single regional conven- 

 tion for each region. In most areas, a complex 

 network of bilateral and semiregional agree- 

 ments would develop. The enforcement of these 

 arrangements would also be difficult and costly. 



POSSIBLE RESPONSE 



The question of how Japan might respond to 

 likely changes in international regimes for fish- 

 eries is, to a substantial degree, answered by 

 what she has done in the past in response to 

 various claims by other nations (see section on 

 International Arrangements) . If the Law of 

 the Sea Conference results in a global conven- 

 tion providing for extensive coastal jurisdiction 

 or broad preferential rights of coastal states, it 

 is unlikely that Japan will be a party to such a 

 convention. She would then regard actions 

 taken by member states of the convention as uni- 

 lateral. In the past, Japan has responded to 

 unilateral actions in a variety of ways. When 

 she did not have much vested interest in the zone 

 claimed and the nation claiming the zone was 

 not prepared for negotiating the issue, Japan 

 voluntarily refrained from fishing in the zone 

 while refusing to recognize the claim. When her 

 vested interest was very substantial, Japan en- 

 tered into negotiations with the country con- 

 cerned. In some cases, such as the Japan-South 



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