On 24 November 1996, in Monaco, the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic Area was concluded. It is an agreement within the meaning of Article IV, paragraph 4, of the Bonn Convention of 1979. The originals, equally authentic, are in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish, deposited with the Government of the Principality of Monaco, which is the Depositary. It is not the Bonn Convention itself and not ASCOBANS.

Article I: the Agreement area comprises the maritime waters of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the internal waters connected to or interconnecting them, and the Atlantic area contiguous to the Mediterranean west of Gibraltar, as far as the line joining the lighthouses of Cape St. Vicente (Portugal) and Casablanca (Morocco). Nothing in the Agreement prejudices rights and obligations under the law of the sea or the Montreux Convention of 1936. It applies to all cetaceans whose range lies entirely or partly within the Agreement area; Annex 1 contains an indicative list.

Article II: the Parties shall take co-ordinated measures to achieve and maintain a favourable conservation status; they shall prohibit and eliminate, where this is not already done, any deliberate taking of cetaceans; and they shall co-operate to create and maintain a network of specially protected areas. Exceptions: emergency situations under Annex 2, paragraph 6, or non-lethal in situ research after the advice of the Scientific Committee. The measures in Annex 2 address national legislation, human-cetacean interactions, habitat protection, research, capacity building and emergency responses. Fisheries measures apply in waters under sovereignty or jurisdiction and, outside those waters, to vessels under their flag. The Parties shall apply the precautionary principle.

Article III: the Meeting of the Parties is the decision-making body; the first session not later than one year after entry into force, thereafter at intervals of not more than three years. Decisions are adopted by consensus; if consensus cannot be achieved on the annexes, by a two-thirds majority. Article IV: an Agreement secretariat, in principle within the Secretariat of the Bonn Convention. Article VII: a Scientific Committee of experts as an advisory body.

Article XIII: open for signature by any Range State or regional economic integration organization, at Monaco, until the date of entry into force; accession thereafter. Article XIV: it enters into force on the first day of the third month after at least seven coastal States of the Agreement area — at least two from the Black Sea sub-region and five from the Mediterranean and contiguous Atlantic — have signed without reservation or deposited their instruments, on 1 June 2001. Article XV: no general reservations; a specific reservation may cover a specifically delimited part of internal waters. Article XVI: denunciation takes effect twelve months after receipt. Article XVII: certified copies to the States concerned and, after entry into force, registration with the United Nations under Article 102.

It is not the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling of 1946 and not the geographical extension adopted in 2010.

Image: The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, in the Depositary Principality; Mister No, 3 January 2015; CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area. Treaty text: Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic Area, Monaco, 24 November 1996.