A global movement: NGOs and the policing of international wildlife trafficking

Despite growing environmental awareness and the efforts of a variety of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to influence the wildlife protection policy agenda, wildlife laws remain outside the remit of mainstream criminal justice and their enforcement is often a fringe area of policing whose public policy and enforcement response significantly relies on NGOs. White’s (2012) regulation theory analysis identifies that third parties such as NGOs often play a significant role in investigating and exposing environmental harm and offending and have become a necessity for effective environmental law enforcement. In wildlife trafficking, NGOs are an essential part not only of practical enforcement regimes, but also the development of effective policy acting as: policy advisors, researchers, field investigators, expert witnesses at court, scientific advisors, casework managers, and, in the case of a small number of organisations, prosecutors playing a significant evidence-based role in policy development and law enforcement. This paper argues due to failures in traditional criminal justice responses, the global wildlife enforcement movement, made up of international and transnational organisations like WWF and Humane Society International and complemented with policy networks such as Animal Defenders International and the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT) provides a model for transnational law enforcement. Critically examining NGOs anti-wildlife trafficking practices this paper argues that while over-reliance on NGOs may be undesirable they have become effective enforcement/policy actors stepping in to address the failure of states and national justice systems to deal with this area of transnational environmental crime.

© 2016 Journal of Trafficking, Organized Crime and Security. Reproduced with permission from Brown Walker Press.
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Special Issue on Wildlife Trafficking