Navigating from harbored to heavy seas : a history of Japan’s international fisheries in the North Pacific, 1900-1976

This paper examines the development of Japanese high-seas fishing with a focus on the North Pacific region. As Japanese fishers expanded activities outside of coastal waters and into international oceans, fisheries became an important issue of foreign policy. Japan had to manage its fisheries activities within a changing international legal framework, analyzed in this paper through regime theory. High-seas fishing in the North Pacific passed through three resource-regime phases, each consecutively more restrictive in correlation with increasing concern over resource depletion. The paper also examines the roles played by American cold war security concerns, changing technology, and environmental concerns to explain how and why fisheries regimes transformed.Arts, Faculty ofHistory, Department ofGraduat