Consensus or Not Consensus: That Is the CCAMLR Question

• Main Authors: Turner, JR, Jabour, JA, Miller, DGM
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Brill Academic Publishers 2008
• Subjects: Environmental Sciences; Environmental Science and Management; Environmental Management; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://www.brill.nl/; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/55249

Recent commentary has highlighted inconsistencies between internationallegal concepts (norms and rules) and the capacity of States to adopt orimplement them.1 In some cases, the State legal systems in place are readilyable to accommodate the dynamic new norms that have evolved from rapidchanges in contemporary international values or policies (e.g., in respect oftorture, trade, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.). When this is not the case,the obvious conclusion is that legal operating systems need to adapt, orimbalances are likely to persist and new norms will not be given full effect.2The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine LivingResources (CAMLR Convention)3 is a longstanding international agreementthat celebrated its 25th annual meeting in 2006. In this article, weretrospectively analyze the Conventions implementation by its administrativeCommission (CCAMLR) to evaluate the regimes adaptability. Thearticle focuses on the key role that CCAMLRs consensus-based decisionmakinghas played in relation to a recent qualification to past practicearising from consensus-minus-one decisions. The overall effectiveness ofthe regime is accordingly assessed.Recognizing that consensus does not operate in a vacuum, wehypothesize that CCAMLRs management of Southern Ocean marine living resources comprises at least four essential elements: cooperation, compromise,consensus, and compliance. To help explain how CCAMLR functions,a particular methodological template is applied to these elements toascertain if it is possible to place them within either an operating or anormative system or sometimes both. As Figure 1 shows, the elements areessentially discrete, but linked; we emphasize this point by illustrating howthey interact.Our study begins by exploring CCAMLRs history and how cooperationhas been achieved even though the overriding interests of the Statesinvolved encompass a commercially competitive activity (harvesting). Likemany international legal instruments, the Conventions negotiation invariablyled to compromises. The Chairmans Statement, appended to theConvention, is itself a built-in compromise on the application of CCAMLRsjurisdiction.Finally, we examine what is meant by consensus: how it operates tounderpin compliance, and what the emerging notion of consensus-minusoneimplies. Our primary objective is to establish if the current CCAMLRdecision-making process actually improves compliancea reasonable expectationthat indicates if the regime is working effectively.