Abstract:
The Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (Cartagena Convention) and its Protocol concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) provide a unique framework, with pragmatic measures, through which nations are encouraged to work together to protect shared marine resources. In an effort to gauge the efficacy of the SPAW Protocol during the five years (2000-2005) since
it entered into force, I conducted the first review of enabling legislation among the Protocol’s 12 Parties. To focus the endeavor, I evaluated the progress Parties have made in developing legislation to implement Articles 10, 1l, 13 and 14, with a specific focus on six species of endangered sea turtles protected under Annex II. As regionally depleted, high-profile, and relatively well-studied species, sea turtles are a useful proxy to assess the degree to which the
Parties have met their obligation to ensure the protection and recovery of shared species and critical habitat.
After developing a normative list of legal criteria addressed by each of the targeted Articles, reviewing ca. 130 legislative texts and published analyses, and comparing existing laws with my criteria to characterize strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in each Party’s national regulatory
framework, I concluded that a majority of Parties have at least partially met the mandates of Articles 10 and 11, while a minority have met the mandates of Article 13. Two States appear to have chosen to invoke exemptions (for subsistence or traditional use) provided by Article 14.
In seeking to fulfill the mandates of the SPAW Protocol, Parties have made substantial progress in modernizing and harmonizing their approaches to managing migratory marine species. Significant legislative gaps remain both within and among States; the study highlights the
challenges inherent in biodiversity conservation at multilateral scales.
