Japan’s law enforcement issues to combat illegal fisheries

Japan’s Fisheries Act, which ensures the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other relevant treaties, stipulates regulations to deter illegal fisheries. Illegal fisheries undermine efforts to manage fisheries sustainably and conserve marine living resources, distort competition, and put legitimate fisheries at an unfair disadvantage. However, the legal analysis conducted in this article demonstrates that Japan’s fisheries-related laws have fundamental weaknesses in deterring illegal fisheries. Namely, they primarily protect the fishermen’s economic interests but mostly contain no provisions explicitly related to conserving marine living resources or marine ecosystems as a legal interest, and this orientation in the legislation has substantially guided the law enforcement: For example, monitoring is weak of illegal fisheries activities that do not directly infringe on fishermen’s economic interests even if they harm marine living resources or marine ecosystems, and severe sanctions are rare. These practices will not help conserve irreplaceable marine living resources or restore the marine ecosystems that are the basis of sustainable fisheries. Therefore, it is necessary to transform the legal structures of Japan’s fisheries-related laws to shift from undue emphasis on protecting fishermen’s economic interests to the conservation of marine living resources and marine ecosystems by explicitly referring to them as a legal interest. This change should make Japan’s law enforcement more effective in eradicating illegal fisheries with a view to achieving sustainable fisheries in the future.