International Trade in Animals and Animal Parts 237 expanded to include additional banned, regulated and monitored species, divided among four Annexes (A, B, C, D) (EC 2010) However, this approach is not shared with most EU member states Disparities in the enforcement and sanctioning levels among member states weaken the responses of all member states In recognition of the problems in the enforcement of CITES, the EU has recently become party to CITES and is currently developing an EU IWT Action Plan There are many limitations documented in terms of how effectively CITES regulates the wildlife trade and deters IWT Reeve (2002) suggests CITES has been compromised by (a) being a self-policed system with no global enforcement agency to oversee compliance, (b) the dissolution of borders making the permit system irrelevant, and (c) chronic underfunding Additionally, both Yury Fedotov, the Director of the UNODC, and John E Scanlon, Secretary General of CITES, noted deficiencies in the official response to organised offences, particularly with regard to legislation, law enforcement, prosecution and punishment, criminal analysis and international cooperation (CITES 2013) As the chief aim of CITES and related national legislation is to protect the economic sustainability of the wildlife trade, trade is banned in only a few critically endangered species, and the majority of wildlife are neither listed nor protected (Sollund 2011) Non-CITES animals are an even lower priority and thus even more vulnerable (Regueira and Bernard 2012) with only minimal protection through generic animal welfare laws and transport requirements No specific legislation exists to provide international protection for the welfare of animals in the trade As it stands, legislative protection for wildlife from abuse is deficient To send a clear message to poachers, traders and consumers legislative changes are essential Both the wildlife trade and the related harms could be reduced through legislation which exerts pressure on source countries to prevent, capture and remove the trade in illegal products from local marketplaces, and on demand countries to develop a clear message and response to reducing demand (Wyatt 2014) Enforcement Through monitoring only certain species and regulating, rather than banning, the wildlife trade, loopholes arise, creating opportunities for fraud and corruption Warchol et al (2003), among others (Hubschle 2014; UNODC 2012; Wyatt 2009), have identified forgery, fraud and corruption in the