FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 2 



Korea controversy, the Japanese government 

 did not stop fishing vessels of its nationals from 

 entering the claimed zone, resulting in the sei- 

 zure of many vessels. In most cases, however, 

 practical arrangements of various kinds were 

 agreed upon, sometimes after long negotiations, 

 as described before, Japan has not challenged 

 any fishery claim by force, and, except for the 

 Japan-South Korea and Japan-Soviet contro- 

 versies, no real diplomatic crisis has developed 

 from fishery issues. 



The future trend in this respect will be about 

 the same. Japan would do her best to protect 

 her fishery interest against unilateral claims 

 with whatever trade offs available to her, both 

 within and outside the purview of fisheries, but 

 would still seek a pragmatic solution to settle 

 the issue. If Japan has no vested interest in 

 the area claimed, she might voluntarily refrain 

 from entering the zone for fishing while officially 

 refusing to recognize the claim. The same would 

 perhaps apply to Japan's reaction to claims based 

 on the concept of preferential rights of coastal 

 states. 



Such concepts as the allocation of resources, 

 the division of catches therefrom, or the distri- 

 bution of benefits, have already been applied ex- 

 tensively to fishery arrangements involving Ja- 

 pan. Although Japan would not recognize these 

 as internationally accepted legal concepts, she 

 would not object to practical arrangements 

 which would have the same eflFects. The appli- 

 cation of a limited entry system has never been 

 a problem to Japan because of the very nature 

 of her domestic regulations, as outlined in the 

 introduction of this paper. In most of the bi- 

 lateral agreements she has made so far, the num- 

 ber (and in many cases the size as well) of the 

 vessels to operate in a designated area is limited. 



Any substantial change in the definition of 

 shelf resources to include more living resources 

 currently exploited would not be recognized by 

 Japan officially. The main reason for Japan not 

 to sign the 1958 continental shelf convention was 

 the inclusion of living resources. The pattern of 

 bilateral negotiations for problems that might 

 arise from this source would be about the same 

 as that for problems from extended fishery jur- 



isdiction. She would do her best to protect the 

 vested interest of her fishing industry. 



The possibility of general recognition of a 

 special right to anadromous species, particularly 

 salmon, would be a matter of great concern to 

 Japan, as high seas salmon fishing is still one 

 of the most important sectors of the Japanese 

 fishing industry. During the Law of the Sea 

 Conference, the establishment of a special right 

 to anadromous species may be proposed by some 

 nations as one of the principles of international 

 regulation of fisheries. This might receive rath- 

 er broad support, not only because of problems 

 of Pacific salmon but also in view of recent de- 

 velopments in offshore salmon fishing in the At- 

 lantic. Again, Japan would not join a conven- 

 tion including such a provision. But if the 

 United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union 

 should claim, on the basis of such a convention, 

 a special right to anadromous species for the 

 main purpose of eventually eliminating high seas 

 salmon fishing, Japan would be in a difficult po- 

 sition to protect her interest in salmon fish- 

 ing. 



The idea of establishing a world agency for 

 regulating all high seas fisheries has been talked 

 about by idealistic people, but by now it is widely 

 recognized that this is not feasible, nor even de- 

 sirable. We can pretty well eliminate this pos- 

 sibility from our consideration of fishery prob- 

 lems in the foreseeable future. 



In short, it is unlikely that Japan could take 

 any definite course of action to cope with an in- 

 creasing number of international problems she 

 is going to face. She must be prepared for more 

 and harder negotiations to find a practical so- 

 lution to each of the problems. In the North 

 Pacific, Japan will have to keep negotiating with 

 the Soviet Union for salmon, crabs, and herring, 

 and probably for some of the groundfishes in 

 the future. Negotiations have become increas- 

 ingly difficult as additional regulatory measures 

 have been proposed by the Soviet Union every 

 year. As the U.S. king crab fishery in the Ber- 

 ing Sea is expanding with the Japanese quota 

 being reduced, the future of the Bering Sea king 

 crab fishery also looks bad. Continuous pres- 

 sure will come from the United States and Can- 

 ada to provide their coastal fisheries with a 



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