The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) contains a number of legally binding provisions that Parties to the Convention are obliged to implement in their national legislation. In 1992, the Conference of the Parties adopted Resolution Conf. 8.4 (Rev. CoP15) on national laws for the implementation of CITES summarizing these obligations in four minimum requirements to the national legislation:

Designation of national CITES Management and CITES Scientific Authority (Article IX, paragraph 1);
Prohibition of trade in violation with the Convention (Article II, paragraph 4 and Article VIII, paragraph 1);
Penalization of trade in, or possession of, illegally traded specimens (Article VIII, paragraph 1 (a); and
Confiscation of illegally traded or possessed specimens (Article VIII, paragraph 1 (b)
Under the Resolution, the Secretariat is tasked with identifying Parties whose legislation does not meet these minimum requirements and place them in three Categories:

Category 1: Parties whose legislation generally meet all four minimum requirements
Category 2: Parties whose legislation meets some but not all four requirements
Category 3: Parties whose legislation generally does not meet the requirements
The indicator gives a clear picture of the percentage of Parties with legislation in Category 1 out of the total number of Parties, which in turn is an indication of the level of legislative implementation of the Convention by the Parties.