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Delegitimizing Ivory: The Case for an Ivory Trade Ban Treaty

Part of: Elephant Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Rachelle Adams
Rachelle Adams*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University’s Law Faculty in Jerusalem
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In Romain Gary’s novel Roots of Heaven, Morel, a French national in despair over the plight of Africa’s elephants, resolves to promote an international convention that will ban all hunting of elephants. The setting is colonial Chad in French Equatorial Africa in 1953, and, evocative of the current crisis, the story relates that thirty thousand elephants had been killed that year alone. The theme of the use of international law to protect the elephant weaves throughout the narrative. Morel is obsessed with gathering signatures to his petition for the new treaty, to counter “the notoriously insufficient laws for the protection of the African fauna.” The key international treaty at that time was the 1933 Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State. This convention had been adopted at the urging of scientists anxious over the devastation of elephant (and other wildlife) populations, by colonial governments more concerned over the implications for the ivory trade. The convention regulated hunting for trade and for trophies, as well as subsistence hunting, and provided for the conservation of the elephant as part of a management plan for this very lucrative colonial trade. Admittedly, although its primary objective was the steadfast supply of elephants for their tusks, this treaty did stalwartly stand between traders, governments, and consumers on the one hand, and the final demise of elephants on the other.

Type
Symposium: Elephant Law
Information
AJIL Unbound , Volume 108 , 2014 , pp. 166 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2014

References

1 International Convention for the Protection of Fauna and Flora [with Protocol], Nov. 8, 1933.

2 Varun Vira & Thomas Ewing, Ivory’s Curse: The Militarization & Professionalization of Poaching in Africa, Born Free USA (Apr. 2014).

3 Iworry: A Campaign by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

4 Azzedine Downes & John Scanlon, Empowering Youth on World Elephant Day to Secure Wildlife’s Future, International Fund for Animal Welfare [IFAW] (Aug. 12, 2016).

5 Glennon, Michael J., Has International Law Failed the Elephant?, 84 AJIL 1 (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The Biodiversity-related Conventions, Greenfacts.

7 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora [CITES].

8 Varun Vira et al., Out of Africa: Mapping the Global Trade in Illicit Elephant Ivory, Born Free USA (Aug. 2014).

9 Shoumatoff, Alex, Agony and Ivory, Vanity Fair (Aug. 2011)Google Scholar.

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11 Aegerter, Gil, Saving the Elephants? State Bans on Ivory Trade Gather Steam, NBC News (Aug. 12, 2014)Google Scholar.

12 IFAW, Criminal Nature: The Global Security Implications of the Illegal Wildlife Trade (2008).

13 Christopher McCrudden, AJIL Symposium: Comment on Eyal Benvenisti, Sovereigns as Trustees of Humanity, Opinio Juris (July 25, 2013).

14 Cumberland, Emily, Call for Papers: “The End of Treaties? An Online Agora”, 108 AJIL Unbound (Feb. 19, 2014)Google Scholar.

15 See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC].