Marine mammal conservation remains a hot-button international environmental issue, but progress towards addressing key conservation and management issues within existing governance structures - most notably the International Whaling Commission - has stalled. Cameron Jefferies offers a fresh look at the future of international marine mammal management in a way that advances the ongoing dialog surrounding UNCLOS implementation and effective living marine resource management, while employing the comprehensive rational decision-making model as a theoretical framework.

Marine Mammal Conservation and the Law of the Sea lays out and critiques the marine mammal regulatory landscape. It introduces the rational conservation model, and details the modern threats to marine mammals, including climate change, by-catch, environmental pollution, ship strikes. Next, it discusses options for reform under UNCLOS and existing treaties, and finally introduces a new holistic treaty regime based on the rational conversation model, based in part on the UN Fish Stocks Agreement. This book will appeal to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers across public international law, international relations, political science, and environmental policy in the academic, governmental, IO, and NGO spheres.

Cameron S.G. Jefferies' profile page

Dr. Cameron S. G. Jefferies is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law. Dr. Jefferies holds a BSC and LLB from the University of Alberta and an LLM and SJD in Oceans Law and Policy from the University of Virginia School of Law, and has written numerous articles and book chapters on oceans law, shark and marine mammal conservation, and environmental law.

"Up-to-date, insightful, and comprehensive. This is a masterful work that covers and provides guidance on all of the most critical decisions facing the conservation of cetaceans in the 21st century."

--Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, The University of Waikato

"Dr. Jefferies' excellent book, Marine Mammal Conservation and the Law of the Sea, fills an important need in the scholarly literature by providing a thorough and well-researched analysis of international law's treatment of marine mammal protection. The book has three primary strengths. First, it offers a comprehensive review and assessment of existing international law protections for marine mammals. Second, it examines critical ethical dimensions of marine mammal conservation, highlighting important issues at the intersection of environmental law and animal welfare law. Third, it provides valuable and effective recommendations for reform, including a proposed International Marine Mammal Commission and an evaluation of marine protected areas as an effective management tool."

--Randall S. Abate, Professor of Law and Director, Center for International Law and Justice, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University College of Law

"Marine Mammal Conservation and the Law of the Sea is instantly the leading text on all aspects of the international regulation of marine mammals. The author provides a detailed study of the history and current status of global, regional, and national marine mammal management including the paralytic operation of the IWC and an expansive discussion of the conservation-preservation debate that has been the core cause of the paralysis. While telling the story well, Dr. Jefferies goes further with an impressive chapter devoted to the current challenges to the conservation of marine mammals which includes: global climate change; by-catch; ship strikes; environmental pollution, and ecotourism. Bravely, convincingly, and creatively the author calls for a compromise between the conservationists and preservationists through the replacement of the IWC with an implementing agreement within the framework of the Law of the Sea Convention."

--Ted McDorman, Professor of Law, University of Victoria