Standing Committee Calls for CITES Views to Inform Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
Standing Committee Calls for CITES Views to Inform Post-2020 Global
Biodiversity Framework
SDG Knowledge Hub
May 14, 2021
The 73rd meeting of the Standing Committee, the first to be held in a
virtual format, “turned out to be the most attended and proved that while
physical meetings are still the preferred option, online formats can
provide inclusion and transparency, while addressing complex issues”.
The work of SC73 will feed into the 19th meeting of the Conference of the
Parties, which is expected to take place in 2022.
The Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) considered implications
of the COVID-19 pandemic for the implementation of the Convention, and
emphasized that CITES views should be considered in the negotiations on the
post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
The work of the 73rd meeting of the Standing Committee (SC73), which met
from 5-8 May 2021 and included nine hours of meetings spread over three
days, will feed into the 19th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP
19), which is expected to take place in 2022.
Among other agenda items, SC73 also considered:
the Rules of Procedure in an online context;
a language strategy for the Convention; and
the African Carnivores Initiative and the linkages between CITES and the
Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals, agreeing to establish an
intersessional working group, aiming to make recommendations to the June
2021 meeting of the Animals Committee.
SC73 was the first CITES Standing Committee (SC) to be held online, which,
as the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) analysis of the meeting notes,
“turned out to be the most attended and proved that while physical meetings
are still the preferred option, online formats can provide inclusion and
transparency, while addressing complex issues.” For example, registration
requests included “parties that had been unable to send representatives to
previous face-to-face meetings of the Standing Committee.”
However, delegates were unable to complete the agenda, with several items,
including the discussion of the terms of reference and modus operandi of
the Big Cats Task Force and the intersessional working group on stocks and
stockpiles (elephant ivory), being postponed due to lack of time.
Whereas much discussion around the roots of the pandemic has focused on the
potential role of illegal wildlife trade, the ENB analysis notes that “it
is just as critical to think of the risks and vulnerabilities caused by
large-scale legal wildlife trade” – the backbone of the Convention. The
intersessional working group on the role of CITES in reducing the risk of
future zoonotic disease emergence associated with international wildlife
trade is due to report back at SC74. The ENB analysis suggests its findings
“will be key to understanding whether CITES has a role to play in reducing
the threat of coronavirus pandemics.”
The aim of CITES is to ensure that international trade of wild animal and
plant species does not threaten their survival. CITES parties regulate
wildlife trade through controls and regulations on species listed in three
appendices.