CITES

Summary: Utilizing a research exception granted under the international moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission, Japanese whalers have been harvesting endangered whales in the Southern Ocean. The anti-whaling activist group, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, also operates in the Southern Ocean by locating Japanese whaling vessels in order to bring an immediate halt to all whaling activities, often employing violent tactics designed to injure whaling vessels and property. Sea Shepherd operates under an apparent mandate of the United Nations World Charter for Nature allowing individuals to “[i]mplement the applicable international legal provisions for the conservation of nature and the protection of the environment.” The multitude of vague international conventions and treaties governing the Southern Ocean have therefore created a tangled and confusing web of authority where both Japanese whalers and Sea Shepherd have arguable claims of operating under legitimate legal mandates. In this note, Alana Preston argues that individual countries should enforce their domestic laws to prevent the Japanese from whaling, so private entities, like Sea Shepherd, will not.

Summary: At COP12, it was agreed that Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa could export ivory to an as yet unidentified buyer, subject to certain conditions. The Standing Committee is required to interpret and define the language of these conditions, and to establish the process and time-frame within which decisions should be made as to their fulfillment.

Summary: The aim pursued by this Directive is to ensure the provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative provisions in the Member States for the protection of animals used for research avoid affecting the market. In this directive, an experiment not entailing the use of animals is preferred over one that does if that experiment can obtain the same result and is reasonably and practically available. Furthermore, each Member State shall ensure that experiments using animals considered as endangered under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora and Annex C.I of Regulation (EEC) No. 3626/82 are prohibited unless they are in conformity with the above-mentioned Regulation and the objects of the experiment are research aimed at preservation of the species in question, or essential biomedical purposes where the species in question exceptionally proves to be the only one suitable for those purposes.