Deconstructing international wildlife law: Policy instruments in international wildlife treaties

This study presents a comprehensive mapping of the policy instruments that are currently used in international wildlife treaties. To do so, it first explores the various typologies that exist to classify policy instruments in an environmental context and extracts one to serve as a basis for the analysis. That policy instrument typology is then set loose on the 96 multilateral wildlife agreements that are directly relevant to wildlife conservation. The result is a comprehensive overview of the policy instruments that currently make up the international legal framework for wildlife conservation, and their distribution across categories. The analysis reveals that, generally speaking, the policy instrument mix used in the multilateral wildlife agreements analysed is often remarkably similar. The usual mix is a cocktail of—qualified—specification and management standards, reporting requirements, exchange of information, education or public awareness and a more or less vague obligation for parties to consult or co-operate. Finally, this study tracks the development of policy instruments in multilateral wildlife agreements across (recent) history, in order to lay bare the underlying tendencies and evolutions in international wildlife law. It reveals that the landscape of policy instruments is shifting—albeit very slowly. Traditional command-and-control instruments have, to some extent, been replaced and supplemented with informational and voluntary instruments, as well as with some rudimentary economic and rights-based instruments.