Mechanisms for compliance with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the case of the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania)

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Author: Roman Kolobov

DOI: 10.21128/2226-2059-2024-4-111-137

Keywords: World Heritage; Selous; environmental law; international law; World Heritage List

Abstract

The object of the study is the tendencies of development of the World Heritage protection system at the current stage of its development. They are revealed by analysing the international legal practice of protection of the Selous Game Reserve, which is a vivid illustration of the complex of problems that have developed in the system of World Heritage protection. The methodology of the research is based, first of all, on the classical methods of cognition developed in legal science: formal and logical analysis of the documents of the World Heritage protection system and their interrelation, as well as various methods of interpretation of legal texts. The specific features of the chosen subject of research predetermine the use of research methods of related social sciences, first of all, political science. Decisions of the World Heritage Committee are put in legal form, but their elaboration and implementation are highly politicized. For this reason, the article uses different techniques to identify the interests of various actors in the adoption and implementation of the Committee’s decisions and their impact on the content of the World Heritage protection regime. The author highlights the main threats to the ecological state of the Reserve and the legal means of counteracting them, and pays special attention to the Committee’s legal views on the development of extractive industry projects and the peculiarities of their application to the Reserve. The article states a special role of international “soft” law in regulating the processes of subsoil use in the territories of unique natural objects, and demonstrates the problem of international legal regulation of hydroelectric dams construction within the boundaries of the World Natural Heritage properties using the Reserve as the example. Based on the results of the study, the article concludes that there are growing contradictions between the Committee and International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in their search for balance between the interests of nature conservation and economic development of states. The article also forecasts the most probable consequences of such contradictions, including the weakening of conservation restrictions within the protection regimes of World Natural Heritage properties, the strengthening of regional initiatives for the protection of unique natural sites at the expense of universal ones, as well as reduction of the status of listing of properties on the World Heritage List. Based on an in-depth analysis of the shortcomings of IUCN’s work, the author proposes several ways to address them using the potential of soft international law.

About the author: Roman Kolobov – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Associate Professor, Department of International Law and Comparative Law, Law Institute, Irkutsk State University, Research Fellow, Laboratory of Legal Problems of High-Tech Industries, A.E.Favorsky Irkutsk Institute of Chemistry, Irkutsk, Russia.

Citation:

Kolobov R. (2024) Mekhanizmy soblyudeniya polozheniy Konventsii ob okhrane vsemirnogo kul'tur­nogo i prirodnogo naslediya (na primere tanzaniyskogo okhotnich'ego rezervata “Selus”) [Mechanisms for compliance with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the case of the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania)]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, vol.14, no.4, pp.111–137. (In Russian).

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