Today, most of the world considers killing (and eating) whales to be morally repugnant (although this certainly not the case for centuries leading up to the mid-20th century. Indeed, until the mid-1900s, whales were considered by most countries a “free resource, a gift from nature, available to anyone who would hunt and kill them.” Over the past several decades, however, attitudes and international norms have changed considerably. Part of this is due to over-whaling and the understanding that many species of whales were being driven to the brink of extinction. Part is also due to an understanding that whales are sentient and highly intelligent beings. Whatever the motivation, the distaste for whaling led to widespread international efforts to protect the species. These efforts began in the 1970s and eventually led to international agreements to regulate whaling, including the imposition by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) of a moratorium on commercial whaling (in 1986).
While most countries complied with the spirit of the moratorium, one major whaling country did not: Japan. Japan exploited a loophole in the agreement, a loophole that allowed countries engage in whaling for the purposes of scientific research. There remains a great deal of debate over Japan's use of this loophole--it is not entirely clear whether Japan's continued "slaughter" of whales violates the moratorium. But, even if it does, another issue immediately arises: there are no sanctions--no enforcement mechanism--that can prevent countries from engaging in commercial whaling.
This is where the Sea Shepherd comes in. Sea Shepherd is a non-governmental organization, which has taken up the role of enforcing international law, or, as the organization puts it on its website, its "primary mandate is to assume a law enforcement role as provided by the United Nations World Charter for Nature." Over the past couple of years, a major part of this effort has been directed at the Japanese whaling fleet (an effort made famous by the cable television series, Whale Wars).
From the standpoint of IR, the activities of the Sea Shepherd are interesting and represent a relatively new development. Traditional versions of international relations theory--i.e., realism--have assumed that only states matter. Yet, Sea Shepherd's activities demonstrate, albeit in a very limited way, that non-state actors have the potential to play a much larger, more significant role, and in ways that have not been anticipated. In this case, for example, we have a non-state actor enforcing (or attempting to enforce) international law against the Japanese whaling industry and by extension, against the Japanese state. On this point, it is sufficient to note that Japan's national government is the ultimate target of the Sea Shephard, since it is the government that permits its whalers to conduct "scientific research" and it is the government that defends this practice.
Of course, Sea Shepherds' "enforcement capacity" is insufficient to stop whaling, but this partly because of insufficient resources. If Sea Shepherd were vastly richer--and able to deploy larger and better ships and able to pay its crew members--it likely would have a much stronger impact. At the very least, it might be able force a rethinking of the Convention--it would force members of the IWC back to the bargaining table.
The point, I should stress, is not to extoll the activities of Sea Shepherd (there are many critics, including other environmental NGOs, such as Greenpeace, which disagree with the organization's tactics) or condemn Japan; rather, my point is to highlight the potential and growing role of non-state actors in world politics.
NOTE TO POLS 427 STUDENTS: This is a "quick-and-dirty" sample of a journal entry. It is useful noting that this entry was not based on single news story, but on a series of stories. In addition, my entry originally derives from the few episodes of Whale Wars I saw last year. In addition, to make the entry more substantive, I had to do a bit of research: I went to the IWC website, the Sea Shepherd website, and a few others. Better entries will often--but not always--require that you expand your reading beyond a single story.
