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This review article assesses the relevance of international wildlife treaties for the conservation and sustainable use of the world’s five species of rhinoceros – white rhino (Ceratotherium simum), black rhino (Diceros bicornis), Indian rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis), Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) and Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis). The analysis covers global treaties like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the World Heritage Convention and the Ramsar Wetlands Convention, alongside various regional African treaties. Employing standard legal research methodology combined with relevant knowledge from the natural and social sciences, the focus of the review is both on past performance and future potential of the treaties involved. The outcomes of the analysis suggest that, despite pervasive compliance deficiencies which continue to curtail the effectiveness of the various treaties, the prospects of various rhinoceros populations may well have been (even) worse without some of these treaties. The comparative importance of the World Heritage Convention for the conservation of the three Asian rhino species is an example. The main threat to rhinoceroses – poaching driven by a demand for rhino horn in various Asian countries – is international in nature, and a substantial part of the analysis centers on the international community’s efforts to address this threat over the past four decades within the framework of CITES. A key recommendation flowing from this analysis is for CITES parties to seriously but critically explore alternatives to the current trade ban regime, including the option of a strictly controlled legal trade in rhino horn sourced from viable, sustainably managed populations.

In Norway, as in many other countries, a government-sponsored campaign against large carnivores was waged well into the twentieth century and eventually led to the disappearance of gray wolves (Canis lupus) from the country.1 By the 1960s, the species was considered functionally extinct both in Norway and neighboring Sweden. In 1971, wolves received legal protection under Norwegian law.2 Occasionally in subsequent years,wolves dispersing fromthe Russian-Finnish population made it into the Scandinavian Peninsula. In 1983, in the south-central Swedish–Norwegian border area, two of these immigrants produced a first litter of wild Scandinavian wolf pups again. The Scandinavian wolf population has been growing since and numbers over 400 individuals today, although only a small part of the population lives on the Norwegian side of the border. The threats faced by Scandinavian wolves include inbreeding, low levels of tolerance by some sectors of the rural public, and high levels of poaching.3 Since the official status of wolves in Norway switched from vermin to a protected species, wolf conservation and management has been an increasingly contested topic in the country, with the controversy generally peaking every time the Norwegian government authorizes a winter wolf hunt.4 Whereas some Norwegian citizens would like to seemanymore wolves in the country than the currently estimated 65– 68 animals (plus another 25wolves or sowhose range straddles the Sweden–Norway border), others would rather see them all disappear once more.5 The latest chapter in the Norwegian wolf saga began in summer 2016 when Parliament agreed on a new wolf policy. In the follow-up implementation of this national policy, the relevant RegionalManagement Authorities earmarked a total of 47 wolves—two-thirds of the national population— for culling in order to reduce sheep depredation, only to see the Climate and Environment Minister reverse this decision and reduce the number of wolves to be killed to 15.6 One international treaty has been an influential feature in debates on Norway’s wolf policy during the past three decades: the Council of Europe’s 1979 Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.7 The discourse has, unfortunately, been affected by some tenacious misunderstandings concerning the compatibility of Norway’s constantly evolving wolf policy with the Convention. Our aim in this article is to reduce the confusion in this regard, in order to promote a constructive and well-informed debate regarding the future of wolf conservation and management in Norway. An added advantage of this focus is that it entails the legal analysis of certain features of the Bern Convention, the relevance of which extends far beyondNorwegian wolves, as they apply to European wildlife conservation at large.

Through their annual movements in search of favorable locations to feed, breed, and raise their young, migratory birds connect ecosystems and countries that are sometimes thousands of kilometers ap...