Ethical & Legal Instruments
Bernard DUPONT
Binding treatyConvention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) — core principles summary
Agreed in Washington in 1973 and in force since 1975, CITES exists to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species. Rather than banning trade outright it sorts species into appendices by how threatened they are and applies graduated controls, from near-total prohibition of commercial trade to monitored licensing. Every party must build the Convention into its own national law for it to be enforced at borders and inside its territory. With 185 Parties it affords some degree of protection to more than 40,000 species of animals and plants.
1973 · 5 provisions
Đana Talić
Draft, never adoptedUniversal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW) — DRAFT, NEVER ADOPTED
A proposed declaration on animal welfare drafted at the 2003 Manila conference and revised in Costa Rica in 2005, driven by animal welfare organisations with World Animal Protection acting as secretariat. It was never adopted by the UN or by any government, has no legal or institutional authority of its own, and never reached a vote in the General Assembly. Its text recognises animals as living, sentient beings deserving due consideration and respect, and holds that humans share the planet with other species within an interdependent ecosystem. It is held here as evidence of a stated aspiration, kept clearly apart from every ratified instrument in this bank, with its unresolved bracketed negotiating language left visible.
2005 · 7 provisions
Patrick Myers / U.S. National Park Service (Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve)
Binding treatyConvention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS / Bonn Convention)
Adopted at Bonn in 1979 and in force since 1983, this treaty of the UN Environment Programme protects wild animals whose populations cyclically and predictably cross national borders. Its premise is that no single state can conserve a species that spends its life cycle in many, and that each generation holds the earth's resources in trust for those that follow. Species in danger of extinction are listed in Appendix I, where range states must conserve and restore critical habitat, remove obstacles to migration, and prohibit taking them except in narrow circumstances that must be reported; species that would benefit from coordinated management are listed in Appendix II, for which range states work toward dedicated agreements.
1979 · 12 provisions
Zeynel Cebeci
Quasi-binding standardWOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) Terrestrial Animal Health Code, Chapter 7.1 — Guiding Principles for Animal Welfare
Chapter 7.1 of the World Organisation for Animal Health's Terrestrial Animal Health Code, first adopted in 2004 and last updated in 2019, is the closest thing that exists to an officially adopted international statement of animal welfare principles. WOAH is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1924 with 183 member countries, and since a 1998 agreement it is the World Trade Organization's recognised reference standard-setter for animal health in trade, which gives its codes real weight even though they are formally recommendations rather than a treaty ratified state by state. The chapter defines animal welfare as the physical and mental state of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies, and builds its guiding principles on the internationally recognised five freedoms and three Rs.
2004 · 20 provisions