IELP Goes to The Hague to Protect Endangered Species

June 14, 2007

The Hague, Netherlands

Committee I opened today with a presentation of the Shark Working Group’s draft consolidation of Doc. 59.1 and 59.2, addressing more precise and consistent monitoring of international shark trade. Following an intervention from Japan and China, an amendment was proposed to eliminate the draft’s inclusion of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. These Parties felt that IUU was beyond the scope of CITES and should be left to the purview of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) or the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO - which has management authority over fisheries). Responding to this opposition, Argentina proposed a drafting change that would allow the CITES Animals Committee to consult with the FAO.

This morning also saw the culmination of the elephant debate. After roughly one month of a regional meeting on African elephants, and the intervention of the region’s Environmental Ministers (who were in The Hague for the first-ever CITES country Ministers Round Table dialogue meeting), Chad and Zambia delivered a new round of compromise agreements in hopes to end the long dialogue. This document combined many aspects of the proposals before the Parties all week, and included an authorization of a new round of one-off sales of government registered ivory for South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. These sales are contingent upon certification by the CITES Secretariat, and can only go to registered trading partners (currently only Japan has this status). The sales are to be based upon actual ivory stock piles, which alleviated concerns of additional hunting. Furthermore, following the sale, a nine-year resting period will be enforced so that no trade, no new trade proposals, and no new ivory will enter the global market. This will be an attempt to evaluate the impact of such sales on elephant populations, and hopefully will help stem the illegal sale of ivory in Africa. What does this mean for elephants? First, these new sales will involve stockpiles registered between 2002 and Jan 1, 2007. They will be in addition to the not-yet-sold stockpiles authorized during the Conference of the Parties in 2002. Most likely, the stocks will not be confirmed and certified by the CITES Secretariat for 2-3 years. Then, with a 9 year resting period, trade in ivory will not come before the Parties to CITES until CoP16 or later. Furthermore, the funds from the sales are mandated to go to further conservation efforts to protect elephants in Southern Africa, to a fund for local people, and to a fund for improved management, research, and conservation of elephants throughout Africa. In all, this was a compromise document, and it was fascinating to see the build up to the conclusion!

The U.S. objected to the inclusion of Zimbabwe in the one-off sale because of clear problems with poaching there. But in the end, having voiced its objections, the U.S. made the point emphatically that it would not oppose these amendments that had been reached by African elephant range states through consensus.

The unanimous consensus by all the Parties of this proposal from the elephant range states was a high point of the day. The shared relief at the fact that the range states had actually arrived at consensus was palpable throughout the auditorium. Spontaneous applause broke out on three separate occasions.

Finally, in addition to observing the goings-on of CITES, Paula was able to visit another historic cite in The Hague. She took a tour of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is just “around the corner” from the World Forum Convention Center, our home﷓away﷓from﷓home these past 15 days. One of the many interesting highlights of historic import housed within the Peace Palace of the ICJ is the largest library of international law in the world, which are open to any law student. In fact, getting into the library takes less preparation than booking a guided tour. Whereas you have to arrange to take the tour a day in advance, and you are limited to one of four tour times, to use the library you have only to go to the guard at the gate and explain you purpose to gain access to the library. So next time you have some arcane point of international law you must research, just book your flight to The Hague!!

Links

CITES Secretariat
Species Survival Network