Court Denies Indigenous People’s Right for Catching Salmon

Sapporo District Court dismissed a lawsuit of Raporo Ainu Nation, a regional group of indigenous people in Urahoro town in Hokkaido, which demanded confirmation of their inherent right to catch salmon in Tokachi river. While they argued that they had succeeded activity of fishery from their ancestors, the court turned the argument down based on the constitution and laws regulating fisheries. It made a contrast from international trend of broadly acknowledging indigenous people’s right.

The lawsuit marked the first example for indigenous people in Japan to demand legal confirmation of indigenous rights. Raporo Ainu Nation sued the government of Japan and Hokkaido in 2021 of not recognizing their right to catch salmon in the lower Tokachi river. “It was baseless that the Japanese government in the Meiji era prohibited Ainu’s salmon fishery in the river,” they argued. Their argument was not demanding confirmation of right for individuals, but for a tribe.

 

They argued that the Japanese government had deprived of their rights to access the resources through assimilation policies since the Meiji era. Article 28 of Fishery Resource Protection Act prohibits anyone catching salmon in inland water. The government of Hokkaido allows Ainu to catch a small amount of salmon for the purpose of maintaining their traditional and cultural rituals.

 

The court found that Raporo Ainu Nation had the right for enjoying their culture and their salmon fishery should be respected as much as possible. However, it did not find any legal basis for admitting exclusive right of the group to catch the salmon for their commercial activities. The court concluded that river was public asset in which exclusive control would not be tolerated.

 

The court determined that the right for fishery could not be an inherent right, while recognizing the exceptional catch for cultural purpose as reasonable. In short, catching salmon in river is right for culture, but wrong for commercial purpose.

 

Article 3 of United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 determines that Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination and they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Japan voted for the declaration, followed by recognition of Ainu as indigenous people in the Diet and legislation for it.

 

The government of Japan has long been denying the existence of Ainu in Japanese society, regarding them as assimilated. However, as international movement for recognizing indigenous rights took power, the government needed to correct its discriminative attitude toward Ainu, with necessity to show itself to be conscious of human rights. Although the court dismissed Raporo’s right to catch salmon, it is necessary for the government to deal with the issue of determining the right of indigenous people.