Animal Trafficking and Trade: Abuse and Species Injustice

Abstract

The illegal wildlife1 trade is estimated to be the second-largest illegal trade worldwide (Warchol, 2007; Zimmerman, 2003; South and Wyatt, 2011), and it is steadily increasing (for example Smith, 2010; Stoett, 2002; Traffic, 2008), due to a globalised and expanded market in which the World Wide Web plays a significant role as an intermediary between offers and demands (IFAW, 2008). The illegal wildlife trade threatens one third of the world’s species (Rivalan et al., 2007); the best-known species are the rhinoceros (for its horn) and the elephant (for its tusks) (Wasser, Clark and Laurie, 2009). In this chapter, I will first give a brief overview of the phenomenon, with a special focus on the parrot and reptile trades. Then I will show how a Norwegian case study reflects international findings and how the trade in endangered species in this country may be related to the international market. As reptiles are forbidden in Norway, this provides an interesting case for discussing problems of legalisation and regulation of the trade through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES Convention) versus criminalisation. Finally, I will discuss the trade in nonhuman species from a harm and justice perspective.KeywordsNonhuman AnimalIllegal TradeCustom OfficerWildlife CrimeNonhuman SpeciesThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.