Cultural Exemption Of The Whaling Industry
When trying to determine if people should be allowed cultural exemptions it must first be established if the exemption they are seeking are a current necessity or an obsolete practice. In order to come to a conclusion on this, I believe it is important to look at the history of the whaling industry in order to understand the reasons why whales were once considered a necessary resource.
Whales in the past were primarily harvested for the following resources:
· Whale bones and baleen used in tangible goods (e.g. toys, buggy transportation parts, and women’s clothing applications) (en.wikipedia.org, Baleen, 2016) ;
· whale blubber used for fuel and lubrication (e.g. lamp oil, candles, margarine, and machinery lubricant) (en.wikipedia.org, …show more content…
Furthermore, I believe that this in fact is a matter of public safety for their citizens in the country’s that whaling products are made commercially available. Companies and industries should not be able to produce products that are a health risk to the people who are uninformed about the associated risks involved with using or consuming toxic whale products. It is the primary responsibility of Governments to protect its citizens and I believe that allowing whaling products to be sold for human consumption is a dangerous practice and the practice should be banned for the health reasons alone.
Do you think the whaling ban constitutes a violation of these nations' sovereignty?
I believe that the whaling ban does constitute a violation of these nations sovereignty, however in contrast to that I also believe the whaling practices of these nations are not only an animal abuse issue but more importantly a human rights issue. The citizens of these countries should have “The Right to Adequate Food” (Knemann, n.d.) (www.ohchr.org, 2016) , and it has been shown that whale meat is toxic and contains high levels of mercury. Whale meat is not safe for human consumption and researchers have shown the ramifications of consuming whale meat such as horrific birth defects in babies born in the 1950’s and 1960’s around Japan’s Minamoto Bay (Coghlan,
Whales in the past were primarily harvested for the following resources:
· Whale bones and baleen used in tangible goods (e.g. toys, buggy transportation parts, and women’s clothing applications) (en.wikipedia.org, Baleen, 2016) ;
· whale blubber used for fuel and lubrication (e.g. lamp oil, candles, margarine, and machinery lubricant) (en.wikipedia.org, …show more content…
Furthermore, I believe that this in fact is a matter of public safety for their citizens in the country’s that whaling products are made commercially available. Companies and industries should not be able to produce products that are a health risk to the people who are uninformed about the associated risks involved with using or consuming toxic whale products. It is the primary responsibility of Governments to protect its citizens and I believe that allowing whaling products to be sold for human consumption is a dangerous practice and the practice should be banned for the health reasons alone.
Do you think the whaling ban constitutes a violation of these nations' sovereignty?
I believe that the whaling ban does constitute a violation of these nations sovereignty, however in contrast to that I also believe the whaling practices of these nations are not only an animal abuse issue but more importantly a human rights issue. The citizens of these countries should have “The Right to Adequate Food” (Knemann, n.d.) (www.ohchr.org, 2016) , and it has been shown that whale meat is toxic and contains high levels of mercury. Whale meat is not safe for human consumption and researchers have shown the ramifications of consuming whale meat such as horrific birth defects in babies born in the 1950’s and 1960’s around Japan’s Minamoto Bay (Coghlan,