The Resilience of CITES Regime and Diffused Normative Community

Abstract

CITES, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, was established in 1973 to prevent species extinction that is occurring due to excessive international trade. CITES is a thought-provoking case of multilateral institution building because even though its post-Cold War development was driven by actors who derived power from a norm, salient social movements were not found in the process as seen in the case of anti-landmines. Instead, senior officials and experts who had internalized the principal norm behind CITES, namely, conservationism, pursued a top-down pathway to influence the construction of CITES.