Chapter V 



INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF MARINE MAMMAL 

 PROTECTION AND CONSERVATION 



Section 108 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act 

 directs the Departments of Commerce, the Interior, 

 and State, in consultation with the Marine Mammal 

 Commission, to take such actions as may be appropri- 

 ate or necessary to protect and conserve marine 

 mammals under existing international agreements. It 

 also directs them to negotiate additional agreements 

 required to achieve the purposes of the Act. In 

 addition, section 202 of the Act directs that the 

 Marine Mammal Commission recommend to the 

 Secretary of State and other Federal officials appropri- 

 ate policies regarding international arrangements for 

 protecting and conserving marine mammals. 



During 1995 the Commission took steps to update 

 the compendium of international treaties and agree- 

 ments bearing on the conservation of marine wildlife. 

 The Commission also continued to devote attention to 

 providing advice on U.S. positions regarding efforts 

 to improve fisheries management worldwide, the 

 International Whaling Commission, conservation of 

 marine mammals and marine ecosystems in the South- 

 ern Ocean, and regulation of international trade in 

 marine mammals under the Convention on Internation- 

 al Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and 

 Flora. These activities are discussed below. 



The Compendium of Treaties and 

 International Agreements 



In 1994 the Marine Mammal Commission pub- 

 lished the Compendium of Selected Treaties, Interna- 

 tional Agreements, and other Relevant Documents on 

 Marine Resources, Wildlife, and the Environment. 



The three-volume, 3,500-page Compendium, current 

 through 1992, contains the complete texts of more 

 than 400 international agreements, including more 

 than 100 multilateral and 90 bilateral treaties, agree- 

 ments, accords, and memoranda of understanding. 

 Also included are numerous amendments and proto- 

 cols to these documents, several non-binding interna- 

 tional documents, and a number of significant docu- 

 ments to which the United States is not a party. 

 Many of the bilateral and non-binding documents are 

 available for the first time in the Compendium. 



The Compendium is divided into two sections 

 comprising multilateral and bilateral documents. 

 Subject areas include Antarctica, environment and 

 natural resources, fisheries, marine mammals, marine 

 pollution, marine science and exploration, and others. 

 The Compendium also contains background informa- 

 tion for each document, including primary source 

 citations, the depositary nation or organization, the 

 city in which the document was concluded, the date it 

 was concluded, and, where applicable, the date it 

 entered into force. 



In the fall of 1995 the Commission took steps to 

 begin an update of the Compendium. The updated 

 edition will include multilateral and bilateral docu- 

 ments that were concluded between 1 January 1993 

 and 31 December 1995, as well as a number of older 

 documents not included in the original Compendium. 

 It will contain more than 25 additional multilateral and 

 50 additional bilateral documents in the above subject 

 areas, many of which will be available publicly for 

 the first time. As of the end of 1995 the new material 

 was being typeset. The revised edition is expected to 

 be published by the middle of 1996. 



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