Student Law Review Issue 1 | Page 40

measures52. This oversight has put Trinidad at the forefront of criticism in performing more than the minimum duties towards their environmental legislation. Joining these international treaties is not enough to be considered a good global citizen, not when gross oversight is making these promises seem hollow. As a global citizen, Trinidad has done its duty by joining these international conventions and enacting domestic legislation. Trinidad has signed on to CITES, SPAW and The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity 1996. The Commonwealth Caribbean is under the common law which means that it adheres to the dualist doctrine. This doctrine only allows international legislation to be enforced if it has been enacted into domestic law. These three treaties have not been enacted into domestic law. In the case of Natural Resources Conservation Authority v.Seafood and Ting International Ltd,53 the Court of Appeal of Jamaica had to determine whether the provision of CITES was applicable to local exporters of Queen Conch. CITES aim was to debar exporters without export permits to sell Queen Conch. The Court of Appeal held that the absence of local legislation incorporating CITES into domestic law robbed the permit system of all validity. In the case of Talisman (Trinidad) Petroleum Ltd. v The Environmental Management Authority,54 the Environmental Commission had to determine whether a particular wetland was a designated protected area under the Ramsar Convention. Trinidad and Tobago was a signatory of this convention. Talisman, the appellant, wished to do seismic research in an area, which included part of the Nariva Swamp, which was a designated wetland site under the Ramsar Convention. The EMA refused to grant a Certificate of Environmental Clearance; one of the facts they relied on was that the area in question consisted of part of a protected wetland under the Ramsar Convention. The Commission held that although the site was designated a Ramsar site, there was no local legislation to give legal protection to the designation. These are two instances in the Caribbean, where being signatory to international conventions without enacting                                                               52  Kim LaCapria ’Baby Turtles, Eggs Destroyed by Accident in Trinidad, Conservationists Want Answers’ (The  Inquisitr 21 July 2012)     53  Natural Resources Conservation Authority v. Seafood and Ting International Ltd., (Suit No. C.L. 1999/S‐134; dated  July 1 1999)    54  Talisman (Trinidad) Petroleum Ltd. v. The Environmental Management Authority, EA 3 of 2002.    36