Can bargaining resolve the international conflict over whaling?

Abstract

As the International Whaling Commission has failed to establish a consensus on the interpretation and enforcement of a moratorium on commercial whaling, the disagreement between Australia and Japan over whaling has recently escalated. Australia, a leading opponent of whaling, questioned Japan's scientific whaling program in the Antarctic at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ ruled in 2014 that the Japanese whaling program is unscientific, but Japan revised the program and implemented it after the court ruling. To overcome the current international stalemate regarding whaling, this paper examines the possibility of a bargaining solution to this conflict, particularly through voluntary monetary compensation from Australia to Japan to halt whaling activities. The results of nationwide surveys indicate that Australia's total willingness to pay for the discontinuation of whaling by Japan is significantly greater than Japan's willingness to accept to abandon whaling in the high seas despite a substantial population difference between the two countries. The results suggest that a financial transfer could be a win-win strategy to resolve this long-standing international conflict.