CITES electronic processes: state-of-play

and options for future development

(Version edited for public release)

Prepared for the

European Commission Directorate General Environment

Directorate E - Global & Regional Challenges, LIFE ENV.E.2. – Global Sustainability, Trade & Multilateral

Agreements

by the

United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre

August, 2013

UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre

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Email: species@unep-wcmc.org

Website: www.unep-wcmc.org

The United Nations Environment Programme

World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-

WCMC) is the specialist biodiversity assessment

centre of the United Nations Environment

Programme (UNEP), the world’s foremost

intergovernmental environmental organisation.

The Centre has been in operation for over 30 years,

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research on threats and impacts, and the

development of future scenarios.

CITATION

UNEP-WCMC. 2013. CITES electronic processes: state-

of-play and options for future development. UNEP-

WCMC, Cambridge.

PREPARED FOR

The European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

DISCLAIMER

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© Copyright: 2013, European Commission

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Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4

Processes ................................................................................................................................................ 5

Permit data exchange ....................................................................................................................... 5

Trade data reporting ......................................................................................................................... 5

E-permitting systems ........................................................................................................................ 6

Information updates ......................................................................................................................... 7

Suggested strategy ................................................................................................................................ 8

EPIX conduit ..................................................................................................................................... 8

CITES trade data capture and validation facility ........................................................................... 8

Ready-to-use CITES e-permitting system ...................................................................................... 9

Application Programming Interface (API) ..................................................................................... 9

ANNEX: Definitions ........................................................................................................................... 12

4

Introduction

Over the last decade, various discussions have taken place and advances made in relation to

CITES electronic processes, including within the CITES e-permitting Working Group, at a

number of e-permitting regional meetings, and as part of other CITES and EU meetings and

activities.

These have resulted in an improved understanding of the relevant issues by the Parties

involved and in general support for further developments and collaboration to strengthen the

implementation of CITES through the adoption of electronic processes.

Advances in CITES electronic processes have the potential to improve the implementation of

CITES by:

o allowing near-real-time monitoring of trade in listed species (so any trends of

concern can be identified and acted upon earlier)

o facilitating the near-real-time validation of permit information (reducing the risk

of illegal trade)

o standardising and streamlining the use of taxonomies across Parties

o making it easier for least developed countries to manage their trade in line with the

Convention (therefore avoiding unnecessary bans)

o increasing the efficiency of permit management processes and reducing

duplication of effort (therefore allowing Parties to invest resources in other aspects

related to the implementation of the Convention).

Within this context, this document provides an overview of CITES electronic processes

including an update of progress to date and UNEP-WCMC’s involvement. It outlines options

for future development of technological solutions to facilitate CITES processes and support

decision-making. In particular, the following electronic processes are discussed:

o permit data exchange (EPIX)

o trade data reporting (real-time collation of Annual Report data)

o electronic permitting and

o information updates (data delivery from the CITES Checklist/Species+ to national

permitting systems through an API -Application Programming Interface-).

The document presents an overview of the processes and progress to date, followed by a

suggested strategy (outlined diagrammatically in Figure 1). Definitions of relevant terms are

included in an Annex at the end of the document.

5

Processes

Permit data exchange

CITES Management Authorities routinely exchange CITES permit data (including permit

numbers) with their counterparts in other countries to verify details and reduce the risk of

fraudulent permits being used. Conducting these consultations by telephone or e-mail is

relatively burdensome for Management Authorities (particularly those issuing large numbers

of permits) and may result in delays.

To facilitate this process, UNEP-WCMC developed, with funding from the European

Commission, the Electronic Permit Information eXchange (EPIX) system. EPIX allows the

near-real time electronic exchange of permit information amongst CITES Management

Authorities to facilitate permit verification. Future EPIX developments have been discussed at

a number of fora, including various CITES e-permitting workshops and, most recently, at a

CITES CoP16 side event. Whilst the number of Parties participating in EPIX has been low,

various CITES Parties are supportive of its continuation and there is general consensus

amongst those involved in the discussions that the next phase of EPIX should include ‘conduit’

functionality.

In an electronic permitting scenario, EPIX could work as a ‘conduit’ of permit information.

Due to the high number of possible bilateral exchanges amongst CITES Parties, the

development and management of a multitude of bilateral connections would be difficult and

highly inefficient. With a central EPIX conduit, each Party would only need to establish a

single connection, through which data exchanges with any number of other Parties can be

managed. The EPIX conduit would give CITES Authorities the ability to control which data is

being shared with whom (see Figure 2 for more details).

It is anticipated that this functionality would lead to increased participation by automating

the provision of regular data updates (i.e. reducing the burden of sending batch updates) and

by introducing links to potential near-real-time trade reporting.

Trade data reporting

In fulfilment of Article VIII, paragraph 7 of the Convention, CITES Parties must prepare

annual reports containing details of trade in CITES-listed species. The annual reports are

submitted to UNEP-WCMC and, following a series of data checks, subsequently uploaded

onto the CITES Trade Database (maintained for the CITES Secretariat by UNEP-WCMC) and

made available online. Permit numbers are confidential and therefore not uploaded onto the

CITES Trade Database. Instead, they are held securely by UNEP-WCMC and accessed when

necessary to resolve discrepancies or perform detailed trade analyses.

CITES trade data provides the basis for, inter alia, trade analyses, the Review of Significant

Trade, quota management, sustainability assessments, and overall compliance with and

enforcement of the Convention. However, submission of CITES annual reports poses a

considerable burden to Parties. In addition, as the deadline established by Resolution Conf.

11.17 (Rev. CoP16) for submission of annual reports is 31 October of the year following the year

to which they relate, CITES trade data are only available up to 22 months after trade took

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place. Moreover, a significant number of Parties fail to submit their annual reports in time,

further increasing the time gap.

As noted under ‘Permit data exchange’ above, an EPIX conduit could provide the basis for the

real-time capture of permit data to be fed into an improved CITES Trade Database (which

would also be integrated as part of Species+).

Fifty-five per cent of respondents to a questionnaire on CITES data management circulated to

CITES Parties in early 2013 reported that they would be interested in using direct electronic

submission of CITES annual report data to UNEP-WCMC in near-real time. Thirty per cent of

respondents reported that they would be “supportive in principle, but not a current priority”,

while the remaining 15 per cent answered “don’t know”.

E-permitting systems

At CITES CoP13, in 2004, some CITES Parties noted that development of e-permitting systems

could greatly assist in the handling and processing of CITES applications, and the collation

and dissemination of CITES trade information. Subsequently, a CITES electronic permitting

toolkit was developed and Parties using or developing electronic permits and certificates were

encouraged to adopt the standards recommended in the toolkit. In 2012, a v.2 of the toolkit

was developed and the standards in the toolkit were included in the WCO Data Model.

The level of development of CITES electronic permitting systems varies greatly amongst

Parties. Very few countries currently have fully electronic national permitting systems, but an

increasing number of them are either developing or planning to develop systems, while others

do not have the capacity to do so. For instance, Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Malta,

Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the UK, amongst others, have electronic or partially

electronic permitting systems and some of these are currently undergoing further

development. Parties including Bulgaria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Canada, Finland, Georgia and

Poland are considering the development of national electronic permitting systems. Many

Parties do not have any electronic system. Amazonian (ACTO1) countries are currently

implementing a regional project on CITES electronic permitting and it is envisaged that Brazil

will share the specifications of their system with other countries in the region.

At CITES CoP16, Decision 16.54 (directed to the Standing Committee) was adopted to extend

the mandate of the Working Group on Information Technologies and Electronic Systems to,

amongst other, “collaborate with the CITES Secretariat in the drafting of funding proposals

related to the development of CITES e-permitting systems” and “collaborate with the UNEP

World Conservation Monitoring Centre to further develop the Electronic Permit Information

eXchange to act as a clearing-house of CITES e-permits and certificates and to offer Parties in

developing regions a ready-to-use electronic CITES permitting system”.

All respondents to a questionnaire on CITES electronic permitting circulated to CITES Parties

in early 2013 reported that a CITES e-permitting system would be either (or is, if already in

place) ‘very useful’ or ‘useful’ to their country. In addition, Caribbean countries have recently

expressed the need for support in developing a CITES electronic permitting system for the

region.

1 Amazonian Cooperation Treaty Organisation

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As all 178 Parties to CITES have a fairly standard set of permit requirements, it seems likely

that Parties would benefit from synergies in joint development of new electronic systems,

and/or from replicating aspects of a common system. Furthermore, Parties without the

capacity to develop a national CITES e-permitting system could benefit from using a ready-to-

use system.

Based on UNEP-WCMC’s expertise in developing EPIX and permit storage databases such as

the caviar database, in 2010, UNEP-WCMC and the CITES Secretariat prepared a proposal for

the development of a remote CITES e-permitting system so that countries without their own

national systems could access it remotely and use as their own.

Information updates

The development of national CITES electronic permitting systems results in the need to keep

those systems up to date with accurate and standardised information on the listed species for

which permits are being issued. Through Resolution Conf. 12.11 (Rev. CoP16) on Standard

nomenclature, the Conference of the Parties to CITES recognizes the Checklist of CITES

species compiled by UNEP-WCMC as an official digest of scientific names contained in the

official standard references. As the updating of this and other relevant information is

conducted centrally by UNEP-WCMC, several Parties have expressed an interest in the

automatic transfer of the information from UNEP-WCMC to their national systems.

Sixty-nine per cent of respondents to a questionnaire on CITES data management circulated

to CITES Parties in early 2013 reported that they would be interested in the capability of

“pulling” taxonomic, legislative and distribution information from the CITES

Checklist/Species+ into their national systems.

The development of computer-to-computer links (API) between the CITES Checklist/Species+

and national information systems would allow Parties to access the CITES Checklist/Species+

data and automatically update relevant information in their national systems. Parties would

gain immediate benefits in terms of data accessibility and time and cost savings as they would

no longer need to maintain and update their own versions of the data. API development

would also provide a firm basis for future implementation needs such as links to e-permitting

systems.

Several Parties have expressed an interest in the development of this API and Belgium has

provided Use Cases (or specifications as to how they would use the system) and offered to

collaborate in the development of an API. It is envisaged that an initial API on the basis of

these Use Cases could be developed and serve as a proof of concept and then be expanded

with support from other Parties requiring additional functionalities.

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Suggested strategy

A diagrammatic representation of the suggested strategy is outlined in Figure 1. This “vision”

was presented by UNEP-WCMC at CITES CoP16. The CITES Secretariat, the chair of the e-

permitting WG and various Parties have provided input and expressed general support for this

suggested way forward. Further details are provided below.

It should be noted that the development of CITES electronic processes has the potential to

widen the technological gap between countries with and without the capacity to

fund/implement such processes.

Options will therefore need to be explored for financing the development of identified

solutions and to provide least developed countries with the necessary support to embrace

technological advances in the implementation of CITES processes.

EPIX conduit

It is suggested that the next phase of EPIX includes the development of ‘conduit’ functionality.

Figure 2 outlines a suggested connection establishment procedure and data flow under this

scenario.

To inform the development of functionality, feedback will be needed from EU Member States

and other interested Parties as to whether the EPIX Conduit will best address their needs and

expectations, and on any specific requirements from such a system.

Some countries may require assistance to join, i.e. to establish the connection between the

EPIX Conduit and their national systems. Funding would therefore need to be

identified/directed towards providing the necessary support.

CITES trade data capture and validation facility

The EPIX Conduit could provide a means of testing a system to allow real-time uploads of

CITES trade data into the CITES Trade Database (to be integrated as part of Species+), in

preparation for automating the submission of CITES annual reports. The facility would need

to allow Parties to submit updates as permits are used/cancelled; in addition, a data validation

process would ensure that the quality of the data being uploaded onto the CITES trade

database is maintained or improved.

This development would reduce the reporting burden (as long as Article VIII, paragraph 7 of

CITES is amended to provide for real-time electronic reporting) and the existing time lag

between trade taking place and trade reporting. The availability of CITES trade data in near-

real-time would result in trade volumes/trends of potential concern being identified up to two

years sooner than is currently the case, improving the relevance and efficiency of decision-

making. In addition, features such as quota excess alerts could be put in place to improve

implementation and avoid problems before they arise. These additional features would be

particularly relevant and feasible following the redevelopment of the CITES Trade Database

and integration with Species+.

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It is suggested that, in addition to facilitate real-time permit verification, the EPIX Conduit

serves as a proof of concept to demonstrate the feasibility of capturing CITES trade data in

near-real time. Options for and interest in this should be explored further.

Ready-to-use CITES e-permitting system

It is suggested that EU Member States consider the need for a regional ready-to-use CITES e-

permitting system, as well as potential interest in sharing such system more broadly or joining

forces with other regions for the development of a more global system. Consideration should

be given to systems already in existence or being developed within the EU and in other

regions, to explore potential synergies.

A ready-to-use e-permitting system would also need to take into consideration Parties’ needs

in relation to Single Window trade environments. Similarly, collaboration with the World

Customs Organisation (WCO) and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and

Electronic Buisness (UN/CEFACT) will be essential to ensure full compliance with

international standards and norms related to electronic trade.

Application Programming Interface (API)

It is suggested that the Use Cases provided by Belgium for the development of an API between

Species+ and their national permitting system be used as a pilot to test this data exchange

functionality and as the basis to extend the service to other interested Parties. Input (to better

understand Parties’ data and technical support needs) and support from other Parties will be

required to ensure that a relevant API can be developed.

A funding mechanism would need to be devised to support the maintenance of the API and

particularly to provide technical support to additional Parties (including least developed

countries) wishing to establish connections through the API.

The CITES Secretariat and UNEP-WCMC are currently working on documentation to clarify

terms and conditions of data access.

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Figure 1. Diagrammatic representation of the suggested strategy.

Countries A and C have their own national e-permitting systems, whereas countries B and D do not and therefore use a remote ‘ready-to-use’ one. All Parties are able to securely

connect their systems to the EPIX conduit, which acts as a ‘plug-in shop’ allowing Parties to exchange permit information in real time on the basis of pre-determined authorisations.

For countries that wish to report their CITES data this way, the conduit can also capture permit data for inclusion in Species+ (following a verification process). Up-to-date,

standardised data from the CITES Checklist/Species+ are transferred automatically through an API to the remote e-permitting system and to national permitting systems from

countries requesting this service.

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Figure 2. Diagram outlining a suggested EPIX Conduit connection establishment procedure and data flow.

12

ANNEX: Definitions

The definitions below for some key terms relevant to the topics covered by this document are

not intended to be official definitions but to provide a common understanding to facilitate

discussion.

API (Application Programming Interface): Set of routines and data formats that specify

how different computer systems should interact with each other. An API could, for instance,

provide the means to establish an automatic transfer of certain data in a specific format from

the CITES Checklist/Species+ to national CITES permitting systems.

CITES electronic permitting (e-permitting): Electronic (paperless) management of the

permit business process, including permit application, consultation with Scientific

Authorities, permit issuance, notification to customs and reporting.

CITES permitting: National-level process that includes dealing with export/import permit

applications, consultation with Scientific Authorities, permit issuance, notification to customs

and national data management.

CITES Toolkit: Set of recommendations providing advice on the use of common information

exchange formats, protocols and standards, signatures and other electronic security measures,

for Parties implementing CITES electronic permitting systems, or for Parties developing and

implementing interoperable information exchange projects on electronic permitting systems.

CITES trade reporting: Process undertaken by CITES Parties in fulfilment of Article VIII,

paragraph 7 of the Convention. It includes data management, compilation and submission of

the CITES annual report and customs updates. Following submission of the CITES annual

reports, UNEP-WCMC runs checks on the data to detect any potential errors and uploads the

data onto the CITES trade database.

Electronic Permit Information eXchange (EPIX) system: System developed by UNEP-

WCMC with EU support to facilitate the uploading of CITES permit data and EU certificates to

a central repository and the near-real-time electronic exchange of those data between

registered CITES authorities from different countries to support permit verification and help

reduce the risk of fraudulent permits being used.

Permit information exchange: Exchange of queried CITES permit data between CITES

authorities from different countries to support permit verification and help reduce the risk of

fraudulent permits being used.

Single Window: Cross border, ‘intelligent’, facility that allows parties involved in trade and

transport to lodge standardized information, mainly electronic, with a single entry point to

fulfil all import, export and transit related regulatory requirements.

Species+: Database and associated web portal managed by UNEP-WCMC that provides access

to species information relevant to the implementation of CITES and the EU Wildlife Trade

regulations, including legal listings, EU decisions, trade suspensions, CITES export quotas,

taxonomic and distribution information, etc.