UN Convention against Corruption
This convention is extensively covered in Chapter 11. What needs to be emphasized here is that corruption has become a transnational phenomenon, as the preamble of the Convention rightly confirms, and it plays a significant role in the chain of events that facilitate cross-border criminal activities. As pointed out earlier in this chapter, corruption of government officials is one of the obstacles in combating wildlife crime effectively. Hence, the use of the Convention to facilitate international cooperation in preventing and combating corrupt activities could be complementary to the combating of the illicit trade in endangered species under CITES and to the international measures for the combating of transnational organised crime under the Palermo Convention, which, as indicated above, also contains anti-corruption measures.
UN Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
This Convention predates CITES by one year and was adopted by the seventeenth session of UNESCO’s General Conference on 16 November 1972.[1] [2] Its main objective is to provide for the collective protection of cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value on a permanent basis and in accordance with scientific methods. ‘Natural heritage’ includes natural features consisting of physical and biological formations with an outstanding universal value from an aesthetic or scientific perspective; delineated areas that constitute the habitat of threatened plant and animal species; and natural sites with an outstanding universal value from a science, conservation, or natural beauty perspective”
The Convention recognizes that the cultural and natural heritage that it refers to primarily belong to the territorial state and that the territorial state will do its utmost in taking the necessary protective measures” However, this deferral to national sovereignty is qualified by the recognition that the heritage in question constitutes a world heritage with the result that the international community as a whole must cooperate in achieving the objectives of the Convention” For this purpose the Convention envisages the establishment of a system of international cooperation and assistance to support states parties in their efforts to identify and conserve their heritage” For this purpose a World Heritage Committee has been established, made up of representatives of twenty-one of the states parties”
