Legal regulation of the protection of sea mammals

The topic of this master thesis is the international legal regulation of the protection of marine mammals. The thesis concentrates primarily on the analysis of the species based international law instruments for the protection of the individual marine mammal species. This thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter addresses the main principles of the international environmental law, which have the biggest influence on the protection of marine mammals (biodiversity protection, precautionary principle and sustainable development). The second chapter describes the regulation of fisheries, which is closely related to the protection of marine mammals. This part deals with the historical beginning of the international regulation of fisheries, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the division of the sea areas, regulation of individual fish species and the regulation of fisheries after the UNCLOS. The particular instruments of protection of individual species of marine mammals except Cetaceans are described in the third chapter (i.e. polar bears, Pinnipeds and Sirenidae). The protection of Cetaceans is analyzed in detail in the fourth chapter. The protection of whales on the ground of International Whaling Commission is accented. This chapter describes also the standpoint of the whaling countries..