Editing CITES (section)

==Shortcomings and concerns==

===Implementation===
As of 2002, 50% of Parties lacked one or more of the four major CITES requirements - designation of Management and Scientific Authorities; laws prohibiting the trade in violation of CITES; penalties for such trade and laws providing for the confiscation of specimens.<ref name=Reeve>Reeve, Policing International Trade in Endangered Species: The CITES Treaty and agreement.  London: Earthscan, 2000.</ref>

Although the Convention itself does not provide for arbitration or dispute in the case of noncompliance, 36 years of CITES in practice has resulted in several strategies to deal with infractions by Parties. The Secretariat, when informed of an infraction by a Party, will notify all other parties. The Secretariat will give the Party time to respond to the allegations and may provide technical assistance to prevent further infractions. Other actions the Convention itself does not provide for but that derive from subsequent COP resolutions may be taken against the offending Party. These include:
*Mandatory confirmation of all permits by the Secretariat
*Suspension of cooperation from the Secretariat
*A formal warning
*A visit by the Secretariat to verify capacity
*Recommendations to all Parties to suspend CITES related trade with the offending party<ref name="cites_suspend">{{cite web |url= http://www.cites.org/eng/resources/ref/suspend.php|title=Countries currently subject to a recommendation to suspend trade|publisher=CITES|work=cites.org |access-date=13 February 2012}}</ref>
*Dictation of corrective measures to be taken by the offending Party before the Secretariat will resume cooperation or recommend resumption of trade
Bilateral sanctions have been imposed on the basis of national legislation (e.g. the USA used certification under the Pelly Amendment to get Japan to revoke its reservation to hawksbill turtle products in 1991, thus reducing the volume of its exports).

Infractions may include negligence with respect to permit issuing, excessive trade, lax enforcement, and failing to produce annual reports (the most common).

===Approach to biodiversity conservation===
General limitations about the structure and philosophy of CITES include: by design and intent it focuses on trade at the species level and does not address habitat loss, [[ecosystem approach]]es to conservation, or poverty; it seeks to prevent unsustainable use rather than promote sustainable use (which generally conflicts with the [[Convention on Biological Diversity]]), although this has been changing (see [[Nile crocodile]], [[African elephant]], South African [[white rhino]] case studies in Hutton and Dickinson 2000). It does not explicitly address market demand.<ref name=Hill>Hill, 1990, "The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species: Fifteen Years Later," ''Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Journal'' 13: 231</ref> In fact, CITES listings have been demonstrated to increase financial speculation in certain markets for high value species.<ref>{{cite book |last1=van Uhm |first1=D.P. |title=The Illegal Wildlife Trade: Inside the World of Poachers, Smugglers and Traders (Studies of Organized Crime) |year=2016 |volume=15 |publisher=New York: Springer |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-42129-2 |isbn=978-3-319-42128-5 |url=https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319421285}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Zhu|first= Annah|year= 2020|title=Restricting trade in endangered species can backfire, triggering market booms|work= The Conversation|url=https://theconversation.com/restricting-trade-in-endangered-species-can-backfire-triggering-market-booms-124869}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title=China's Rosewood Boom: A Cultural Fix to Capital Overaccumulation|first=Annah Lake|last=Zhu|date=2 January 2020|journal=Annals of the American Association of Geographers|volume=110|issue=1|pages=277–296|doi=10.1080/24694452.2019.1613955|doi-access=free|bibcode=2020AAAG..110..277Z }}</ref> Funding does not provide for increased on-the-ground enforcement (it must apply for bilateral aid for most projects of this nature).

There has been increasing willingness within the Parties to allow for trade in products from well-managed populations.  For instance, sales of the South African white rhino have generated revenues that helped pay for protection.  Listing the species on Appendix I increased the price of rhino horn (which fueled more [[poaching]]), but the species survived wherever there was adequate on-the-ground protection. Thus field protection may be the primary mechanism that saved the population, but it is likely that field protection would not have been increased without CITES protection.<ref name=Hutton>Hutton and Dickinson, Endangered Species Threatened Convention: The Past, Present and Future of CITES. London: Africa Resources Trust, 2000.</ref> In another instance, the United States initially stopped exports of bobcat and lynx hides in 1977 when it first implemented CITES for lack of data to support no detriment findings.[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ESSA_30_Aug_1977.pdf]  However, in this Federal Register notice, issued by [[William Yancey Brown]], the U.S. Endangered Species Scientific Authority (ESSA) established a framework of no detriment findings for each state and the Navajo nation and indicated that approval would be forthcoming if the states and Navajo nation provided evidence that their furbearer management programs assured the species would be conserved.  Management programs for these species expanded rapidly, including tagging for export,[https://www.fishwildlife.org/afwa-inspires/furbearer-management] and are currently recognized in program approvals under regulations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.[https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-50/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-23/subpart-E/section-23.69]

===Drafting===
By design, CITES regulates and monitors trade in the manner of a "[[negative list]]" such that trade in all species is permitted and unregulated ''unless'' the species in question appears on the Appendices or looks very much like one of those taxa. Then and only then, trade is regulated or constrained.  Because the remit of the Convention covers millions of species of plants and animals, and tens of thousands of these taxa are potentially of economic value, in practice this negative list approach effectively forces CITES signatories to expend limited resources on just a select few, leaving many species to be traded with neither constraint nor review.  For example, recently several bird classified as [[IUCN Red List|threatened with extinction]] appeared in the legal wild bird trade because the CITES process never considered their status.  If a "positive list" approach were taken, only species evaluated and approved for the positive list would be permitted in trade, thus lightening the review burden for member states and the Secretariat, and also preventing inadvertent legal trade threats to poorly known species.

Specific weaknesses in the text include: it does not stipulate guidelines for the 'non-detriment' finding required of national Scientific Authorities; non-detriment findings require copious amounts of information; the 'household effects' clause is often not rigid enough/specific enough to prevent CITES violations by means of this Article (VII); non-reporting from Parties means Secretariat monitoring is incomplete; and it has no capacity to address domestic trade in listed species.

In order to ensure that the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]] (GATT) was not violated, the Secretariat of GATT was consulted during the drafting process.<ref name="what_is_cites">{{cite web|url= http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/what.php |title=What is CITES?|work=cites.org|publisher=CITES|access-date=13 February 2012}}</ref>

===Animal sourced pathogens===
During the [[COVID-19 pandemic|coronavirus pandemic]] in 2020 CEO [[Ivonne Higuero]] noted that illegal wildlife trade not only helps to destroy habitats, but these habitats create a safety barrier for humans that can prevent pathogens from animals passing themselves on to people.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-05-15|title=Preventing illegal wildlife trade helps avoid zoonotic diseases|url=https://balkangreenenergynews.com/preventing-illegal-wildlife-trade-helps-avoid-zoonotic-diseases/|access-date=2020-06-07|website=Balkan Green Energy News|language=en-US}}</ref>

===Reform suggestions===
Suggestions for improvement in the operation of CITES include: more regular missions by the Secretariat (not reserved just for high-profile species); improvement of national legislation and enforcement; better reporting by Parties (and the consolidation of information from all sources-NGOs, [[TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network]] and Parties); more emphasis on enforcement-including a technical committee enforcement officer; the development of CITES Action Plans (akin to Biodiversity Action Plans related to the [[Convention on Biological Diversity]]) including: designation of Scientific/Management Authorities and national enforcement strategies; incentives for reporting and timelines for both Action Plans and reporting.  CITES would benefit from access to [[Global Environment Facility]] (GEF), funds-although this is difficult given the GEFs more ecosystem approach-or other more regular funds.  Development of a future mechanism similar to that of the Montreal Protocol (developed nations contribute to a fund for developing nations) could allow more funds for non-Secretariat activities.<ref name="Reeve"/>

=== TRAFFIC Data ===
From 2005 to 2009 the legal trade corresponded with these numbers:{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

* 317,000 live birds
* More than 2 million live reptiles
* 2.5 million crocodile skins
* 2.1 million [[Snakeskin|snake skins]]
* 73 tons of [[caviar]]
* 1.1 million beaver skins
* Millions of pieces of [[coral]]
* 20,000 mammalian [[Trophy hunting|hunting trophies]]<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Online-illegal-wildlife-trade-in-vietnam.jpg|thumb|466x466px|Infographic from 2024 Traffic Report]] -->

In the 1990s the annual trade of legal animal products was $160 billion annually. In 2009 the estimated value almost doubled to $300 billion.<ref>Ceballos, G.; Ehrlich, A. H.; Ehrlich, P. R. (2015). ''The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals''. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 150. {{ISBN|1421417189}} – via Open Edition.</ref>

Traffic released a report in December 2024 outlining illegal trade in animal products occurring in Vietnam:{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}

Additional information about the documented trade can be extracted through queries on the CITES website.<ref>[https://trade.cites.org/ CITES website]</ref>