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Negotiations on the new protocol under the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime are expected to take years.Jeenah Moon/Reuters
Canada has voted to begin negotiations on a UN protocol that would treat environmental crime, including wildlife trafficking, as a serious organized crime.
It was one of 83 countries to vote in favour of the resolution on Friday, which establishes a committee to draft the new protocol under the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The protocol would also target timber, minerals, precious metals and waste, and illegal mining.
“Canada recognizes that crimes that affect the environment represent an increasingly concerning form of transnational organized crime,” said Rachael Dolan, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, in a statement.
In many countries, including Canada, much environmental crime falls below the “serious crime” bar of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which applies to offences punishable by four years or more in prison. That limits how readily the convention can be used for extradition, mutual legal assistance and joint investigations, the tools countries rely on to pursue criminal networks across borders.
In Canada, wildlife trafficking clears the bar, with a maximum of five years. Four of the country’s six main environmental protection laws, including the Fisheries Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, do not, according to a UN legislative review published last year.
Canada’s baby eel fishery shows what is at stake. As The Globe reported in March, elvers fetch about $2,800 a kilogram, which has fuelled poaching and illegal trade. Last year, cracking down on illegal fishing, federal officers checked shipments at four major airports, seized 225 kilograms and made more than 100 arrests. But those arrests fell under the Fisheries Act, whose penalties are below the convention’s four-year threshold.
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The resolution, led by Brazil, passed in Vienna at the convention’s 13th Conference of the Parties. It cleared the required two-thirds majority, with 87 per cent voting in favour. Twelve countries, including the United States, voted against the resolution and 27 abstained.
It is the first time in 25 years that parties to the convention have agreed to develop a new protocol. Since the convention was created in 2000, it has had only three protocols, on human trafficking, migrant smuggling and firearms, the last adopted in May, 2001.
Alejandra Silva, a spokesperson for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said in a statement that the vote signals countries’ continued support for the convention but also “the need for the convention to be supplemented by specific provisions dealing with these forms of crimes that affect the environment, which are one of the most lucrative forms of transnational organized crime.”
Sheldon Jordan, a former director-general of wildlife enforcement at Environment Canada and a former Interpol official who co-founded the Canadian Environmental Crime Research Network, said the protocol would give enforcement agencies and prosecutors new tools to collaborate across borders.
“Criminals who violate environmental and natural resource laws will find it harder to hide behind borders,” he said, speaking from Vienna.
A Globe and Mail and Pulitzer Center investigation in June found that penalties for wildlife trafficking in Canada rarely match the crime. Most of the cases Environment and Climate Change Canada has publicly reported since 2011 ended in fines under $50,000, and fewer than one in eight included any custody. By comparison, a first-time courier importing fentanyl can expect eight to 18 years.
Mr. Jordan has described Canada’s environmental enforcement framework as more formidable on paper than in practice. “It’s just a scarecrow in many cases,” he said.
Ms. Dolan said Canada supported the resolution “in recognition of the serious and growing threat posed by environmental crime,” and called for “judicious consideration” of the resources needed to set up a negotiating committee.
“We are committed to working with others for a cost-effective, pragmatic and inclusive process, with the participation of relevant stakeholders including civil society and Indigenous peoples, recognizing they can be particularly affected by these crimes,” said Ms. Dolan.
U.S. amendments that would have weakened and delayed the talks were all voted down. They would have allowed a non-binding instrument instead of a protocol, tied the talks to available funding and postponed the work until the Convention’s lengthy implementation review is complete.
Talks cannot begin until the UN General Assembly approves funding for the negotiating committee from the UN’s regular budget, a process that runs through several budget committees, Ms. Silva said.
Negotiations on the protocol’s scope and terms are expected to take years. Canada’s federal wildlife penalties have not been updated since 2009.
This story is produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network.