Global biodiversity conventions and bodies

Prelims and Mains

Both cases turn on two international instruments that are easily confused, one of which binds a government and the other only reports how a species is faring.

• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species binds its parties to control trade across their borders, and each country then needs a law of its own to act inside them.
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List grades how close a species is to extinction, from Least Concern to Extinct, and carries no legal force of its own.
• A species can be Least Concern and still be protected strictly, because a trade listing answers how heavily an animal is traded rather than how rare it is.

Mains

Adopted at the 12th World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Geneva in 2022, it prohibits subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and for overfished stocks, and covers marine wild capture fishing. It is the first WTO agreement with an environmental objective.