CRIMEANTHROP

About the project

CRIMEANTHROP explores the regulation, rationale behind and enforcement of wildlife conservation, the normative and socio-legal messages of this enforcement, and their implications for wildlife conservation and individual animal welfare.

We will use interdisciplinary grounded theoretical and methodological angles and further contribute towards developing international green criminology.

These approaches enable us to present a comprehensive analysis of contemporary wildlife management, human-animal relations and animal rights. Policies and regulations of CITES and the Bern Convention and their impact concerning wildlife trade and human management of endangered predator species will be examined in four countries with different, local, and socio-legal conditions: Norway, as primary site of investigation, with UK, Germany, and Spain as supporting case studies. Qualitative methodologies; interviews with politicians and bureaucrats, law enforcement agencies and NGOs (e.g. WWF,NOAH) will be employed in each case country. CITES and the Bern Convention, national preparatory works, legislation and case law will be subject to discourse analysis. We will empirically and theoretically explore the implementation of CITES and the Bern Convention in the four locations, building on and expanding green criminology scholarship through interdisciplinary approaches from law, political science, criminology, and philosophy. 

Objectives

• To empirically and theoretically explore whether the messages of international conventions (CITES and Bern), and consequently their regulation/legislation and implementation, are ambiguous concerning wildlife protection and animal welfare in Norway, UK, Germany, and Spain.
• To broaden and develop green criminology as a field through interdisciplinary, international cooperation.
• To examine whether unclear normative messages conveyed by CITES and the Bern Convention may hinder implementation and compliance as well as the achievement of further goals such as awareness raising, wildlife conservation, and ecosystem protection.
• To theoretically and empirically explore possible differences in influences and outcomes of  political decision making concerning wildlife management in order to assess whether this affects states' success in complying with CITES and the Bern Convention and their practices concerning individual and species protection.

Outcomes

If the implications of CRIMEANTHROP's hypotheses prove true; that the messages conveyed by the conventions are ambiguous; failing to educate about and protect endangered species; and that individual and species protection is insufficiently integrated into member states' conservation approaches resulting in continued exploitation  and abuse, then endangered wildlife and species survival will be further threatened, prolonging and strengthening species ectinction.

Sub-projects

• Wildlife trafficking. Control, enforcement and species justice 
• Legal and moral foundations of CITES and Bern conventions: Priorities, conflicts and ambiguities  
• Large predator management versus the intrinsic value of animals
• The implementation and enforcement of CITES and the Bern Convention in the UK
• The implementation and enforcement of CITES and the Bern Convention in Germany
• The implementation and enforcement of CITES and the Bern Convention in Spain

Financing

CRIMEANTHROP is funded by the Research Council of Norway's Independent projects (FRIPRO) programme.

Cooperation

This is a cooperation between project partners University of Northumbria, University of Colorado Denver and University of Granada.