Abstract
In recent years, wildlife crime has ceased being the exclusive concern of conservation specialists, and has entered the radar field of international policy and security circles. A controversy has arisen about the alleged role of elephant poaching and ivory trafficking in the funding of terrorism and regional conflicts. It has been suggested that ivory might play the same role of diamonds and other natural resources in fueling conflicts. War-like anti-poaching policies have been promoted as a way to deny terrorists and rebels the funds to continue their activities. A substantial critical literature seems to have debunked these claims, but the trend toward the militarization of conservation interventions becomes nonetheless more and more established. On the other hand, a positive development might be that poaching and wildlife trafficking started featuring in resolutions of the UN Security Council adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Further, in 2015 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on wildlife trafficking for the first time ever. We might be witnessing the early phases of an evolution of international law that could overcome the limitations of the current legal framework for combating wildlife crime.