The UN opens the door to a global treaty against environmental crime

Wildlife trafficking, illegal logging and clandestine mining could soon have their own international treaty. On Friday 23 October, in Vienna, the parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) voted to open negotiations on a protocol against environmental crime.

The vote

• 83 in favour, 12 against and 27 abstentions.
• The proposal was sponsored by eight Latin American countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Uruguay) and three African ones (Mauritania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and São Tomé and Príncipe).
• Those voting against included the United States, Venezuela, Argentina, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The US tabled three amendments to delay the vote or limit funding; none passed.

Brazil called the decision “historic”.

What it would cover

The future protocol would address:

• Trafficking in wildlife and flora, including timber.
• Illegal mining and trafficking in minerals and precious metals.
• Waste trafficking.

The aim is to strengthen prevention, investigation and prosecution of the criminal networks involved. The text must respect each country’s sovereignty over its natural resources and avoid overlapping with existing environmental agreements.

What’s still missing

The vote doesn’t approve the protocol: it sets up a special committee to draft it, with no timeline yet. One of the big open questions is the role of Indigenous peoples, who are mentioned in the resolution but given no mechanism to take part.

“Without us, Indigenous peoples, there is no security in the Amazon,” warned Brayan Mojanasinsoy, spokesperson for the Inga people of Putumayo, Colombia.

Wildlife trafficking moves animals around the globe, as we saw with the sloths that died in Florida. A global treaty won’t solve it alone, but it would give police and judges common tools to go after the networks behind it.