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dc.contributor.authorHarrop, Stuart R.en_GB
dc.contributor.authorPritchard, Diana J.en_GB
dc.date.accessioned2013-09-19T12:18:26Zen
dc.date.available2013-09-19T12:18:26Zen
dc.date.issued2011en
dc.identifier.citationHarrop, S.R. & Pritchard, D.J. (2011) 'A hard instrument goes soft: The implications of the Convention on Biological Diversity's current trajectory', Global Environmental Change, 21(2), pp.474-480en_GB
dc.identifier.issn0959-3780en
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.01.014en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10547/301889en
dc.description.abstractThe relentless loss of biological diversity, which will have a direct impact on human society and degrade ecosystem buffers against the extremes of climate perturbation, requires a strong global governance response. Of the numerous international legal instruments relating to the protection of nature, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the most comprehensive. This paper examines its current emphasis on global biodiversity targets to extend our understanding of its trajectory, and its evolving nature as an instrument of global governance. We review CBD documents, and early examinations of its emergent character, in the context of the distinction between hard and soft law approaches, and combine analysis on the issue of targets from the literature on development, climate change and conservation biology. We emphasise that the CBD, created as a hard law instrument with a framework character, had the clear facility to develop subsidiary hard law instruments in the form of protocols but has not significantly followed this route.
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherElsevieren_GB
dc.relation.urlhttp://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S095937801100015Xen_GB
dc.titleA hard instrument goes soft: the implications of the Convention on Biological Diversity's current trajectoryen
dc.typeArticleen
dc.identifier.journalGlobal Environmental Changeen_GB
html.description.abstractThe relentless loss of biological diversity, which will have a direct impact on human society and degrade ecosystem buffers against the extremes of climate perturbation, requires a strong global governance response. Of the numerous international legal instruments relating to the protection of nature, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the most comprehensive. This paper examines its current emphasis on global biodiversity targets to extend our understanding of its trajectory, and its evolving nature as an instrument of global governance. We review CBD documents, and early examinations of its emergent character, in the context of the distinction between hard and soft law approaches, and combine analysis on the issue of targets from the literature on development, climate change and conservation biology. We emphasise that the CBD, created as a hard law instrument with a framework character, had the clear facility to develop subsidiary hard law instruments in the form of protocols but has not significantly followed this route.


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