The UN'S Lone Ranger: Combating International Wildlife Crime, by John M. Sellar, published by Whittles, 2014, 201pp., £18.99, paperback.

• Published date: 01 April 2015
• Author: Richard Caddell
• Date: 01 April 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12103

Book Reviews

The UN’S Lone Ranger:

Combating International

Wildlife Crime,byJohn M.

Sellar, published by Whittles,

2014, 201pp., £18.99,

paperback.

Had life followed its intended and

rather more conventional direction,

Inspector John Sellar might have

risen somewhat further in the ranks

of the Scottish Police or enjoyed the

tertiary part of his career pursuing a

professional passion for mountain

safety. Instead, an unanticipated

secondment to the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered

Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

(CITES) saw him the subject of

attempted seduction by Caspian

beauties, boiled in a KGB sauna,

charged at by rhinos, trekking

through jungles and Himalayan

mountains, marooned on boats with

deranged captains, thrust onto the

international stage by no less than

Vladimir Putin, honoured by Queen

Elizabeth II and meeting some of

the most corrupt and shady indi-

viduals ever employed in a govern-

ment capacity. Sellar declines to

reveal how he mixes martinis, but

those idealistic about the ability of

multilateral treaties to ensure

meaningful compliance with their

mandates and policies will undoubt-

edly be left both shaken and stirred

by this inside account of his experi-

ences as Chief of Enforcement to

CITES.

The UN’s Lone Ranger – a title

derived from an exaggerated jour-

nalistic tag-line applied to Sellar

that nonetheless stuck – is a memoir

of the author’s 14 years of service

to CITES. Accordingly, it is not

intended as a qualitative evaluation

of the implementation deficits of the

CITES regime: continued diplo-

matic protocol and, rather more

importantly from Sellar’s viewpoint

and reputation, operational security

and the need to preserve the safety of

those working in situ against ruth-

less criminal networks militates

against divulging fuller details of the

jurisdictions and actors that are

most implicated in the continued

trade in endangered species. Nor

does it purport to provide an exhaus-

tive academic treatment of its

subject, focusing instead on the indi-

vidual lessons learned by the author

in seeking to address wildlife crime

on a national and transnational

basis. Its primary value, however, is

as a rare fragment of institutional

memory, providing both the lay

reader and the interested specialist

with considerable insight into the

operational challenges and imple-

mentation disconnects inherent in

the sprawling system of one of the

most significant current global envi-

ronmental regimes.

Such challenges and disconnections

are indeed numerous and substan-

tial, as Sellar highlights with copious

operative examples. The book

assumes no specialist knowledge of

the inner workings of CITES on the

part of the reader, beyond a basic

interest in the problems posed by

environmental crime. Following a

brief nod to Sellar’s earlier domestic

law enforcement career, the book

opens with a series of concise chap-

ters introducing a non-specialist

audience to the operation of CITES

and the primary drivers of wildlife

crime. One of Sellar’s central mes-

sages in this respect is that law

enforcement agencies at all tiers,

ranging between the international

and the municipal, have collectively

failed to appreciate the link between

environmental crime and some of

the most heinous transnational

criminal organizations. In focusing

on the more prominent drivers of

criminal revenue, argues Sellar –

such as the trafficking of drugs,

persons and weaponry – police net-

works have neglected to understand

the role of wildlife crime in funding

such nefarious activities and hence

missed an opportunity for uncover-

ing strands of these wider criminal

networks. These operational failings

are compounded in the view of the

author by poor inter- and intra-

agency communication, jurisdic-

tional turf wars, and a general lack of

resources and political will to ensure

a more comprehensive and effective

response to environmental crime.

More worryingly – since these issues

are, in principle, possible to over-

come with improved methodologies

and prioritization – the endemic

corruption that plagues many sig-

nificant jurisdictions for wildlife

crime has served to create and per-

petuate a climate within which criti-

cally endangered species can be

exploited with relative impunity,

notwithstanding clear international

commitments to the contrary.

These initial chapters are helpful in

setting the scene to the second half

of the book, which provides a series

of illuminating case studies con-

cerning particular species, each of

which are afflicted by particular

enforcement shortcomings and dif-

ficulties. Sellar begins his appraisal

with the peculiar problems associ-

ated with the exploitation of

Caspian sturgeon for the lucrative

caviar trade. In this respect, and

perhaps something of a running

theme in many CITES violations,

the primary problem faced by the

Convention’s institutions remains

the pervasive influence of the mafia

within this region, leading to the fal-

sification of documentation (or, fre-

quently, the misappropriation of

bs_bs_banner

Review of European Community & International Environmental Law

RECIEL 24 (1) 2015. ISSN 2050-0386 DOI: 10.1111/reel.12103

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

107