Civil lawsuits are a breakthrough in environmental law—including for threatened species.  This Guide explains how lawsuits could be used to protect species harmed by acts such as illegal wildlife trade (IWT). Unlike traditional approaches that focus on punishing the perpetrators of environmental harm, this strategy refocuses efforts onto remedying the social, economic and environmental harm caused by IWT.  The Guide describes how to explain that harm, and identify appropriate remedies for use in conservation litigation.  It provides an illustrative example involving the illegal trade of one Bornean Orangutan in Indonesia.  The Guide is a resource for conservation practitioners globally, including conservation orgnaisations, judges, lawyers and government agencies. 

This Policy Brief highlights civil lawsuits as a breakthrough in environmental law—including to protect threatened species harmed by acts such as illegal wildlife trade (IWT). Unlike traditional approaches that focus on punishing perpetrators of environmental harm, this strategy refocuses efforts onto remedying the social, economic and environmental harm caused by IWT. Many countries have enabling legislation that allow such lawsuits, although they are not yet commonly used against IWT.  The Policy Brief highlights what could be done to pioneer conservation litigation for threatened species. For more information, explore “Pioneering Civil Lawsuits for Harm to Threatened Species: A guide to claims with examples from Indonesia”.   

Environmental laws are ubiquitous, including to the field of conservation where they define how wildlife can be legally used, managed and protected. However, debates about environmental law regularly overlook the details within national legislation that define which specific acts are illegal, where laws apply, and how they are sanctioned. Based on a review of nearly 200 wildlife laws in 8 countries, we developed a taxonomy that describes all types of wildlife offences in those countries. The 511 offences are organized into a hierarchical taxonomy that scholars and practitioners can use to help conduct legal analyses globally, providing more nuance and facilitating like-for-like comparisons of laws across countries. This is significant amidst competing calls to strengthen, deregulate and reform wildlife legislation, particularly in response to fears over zoonotic threats and large-scale biodiversity loss. The taxonomy can be used to analyse legal reforms (eg, new laws, deregulation, closing loopholes, harmonising legislation), or to establish international standards. For example, we apply the taxonomy to compare how 8 countries sanction the offence of “hunting a protected species”, to explore different scales and approaches to imposing fines and imprisonment. The taxonomy also illustrates how future legal taxonomies can be developed in the environment sector.