Negotiations on an international instrument to combat plastic pollution through the expert's perspective
The Center's expert Evgeniy Zamyatin participated as an observer in the fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) to develop an international instrument to combat plastic pollution under the auspices of UNEP. We present his perspective on the course and outcome of the negotiations held from 25 November to 1 December in Busan, South Korea. About the Center’s participation in previous sessions, please read: INC-4, INC-3, INC-2, INC-1, main directions of negotiations, review of the international legal instruments on plastic pollution.
What were the discussions about?
A legally binding international treaty on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, which is being developed to protect human health and the environment from plastic pollution.
What is the significance of this session?
The Busan session, according to Resolution 5/14 (eng|ru) initiating the negotiations, was supposed to be the last one: the parties were to agree on the final text of the new international treaty by the end of 2024. However, despite lengthy intensive negotiations, the delegates failed to reach consensus.
How were the discussions going?
Substantive discussions in the first days of the session were held in four contact groups on the basis of Non-paper 3 of the Chair of the Committee (eng|ru), published in October 2024. The document was prepared on the basis of past sessions to speed up negotiations at INC-5. It provides for a framework format of treaty with the development of national reporting and national action plans.
The progress within the contact groups was insufficient, the work was rather chaotic, and many of the articles under discussion merely added options and choices, including from the Compilation of draft text (eng|ru) as a source of specific wording with a fuller reflection of the work at past sessions.
Thus, instead of reducing and developing a single version, the result was an even more loaded project with different options.
By the evening of 28 November, the fourth day of negotiations, not a single line of text had been submitted to the legal drafting group, which is supposed to review the agreed draft treaty for logical and normative errors and send the corrected text to the plenary for final approval.
On 29 November, an updated Non Paper containing draft text of the Chair of the Committee was issued (eng|ru) based on the developed one in the previous days. It included more sections with specifically outlined measures.
The rate of work was clearly insufficient to achieve the goal of producing and adopting a final text by the end of the session. So, delegations spent the next two and a half days working in informal negotiations behind closed doors (informals), which proved to be more effective in shaping the text of the articles — significant progress was made on Article 3 (plastic products).
On 1 December, a new Chair's text (eng) based on past informals was released.
What are the contradictions?
The main controversy, as at previous sessions, is related to the scope of the document, which is defined in Resolution 5/14 as follows: “Decides that the intergovernmental negotiating committee is to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, … based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic.” There are different approaches to defining of the term “plastic”: from what point a substance is considered plastic, whether extraction of hydrocarbons is part of the life cycle of plastics. There is also disagreement as to whether the proposed measures are aimed specifically at combating pollution and which of them go beyond the scope and are not related to plastic pollution.
For like-minded countries (Russia, a group of Arab countries, Iran, India), it is important to limit the scope of the future treaty by not including virgin polymers and hydrocarbons and emphasizing waste management. It is critical for them to develop scope, principles, and terms as a basis for understanding what exactly is being discussed further and to what extent.
Most developed countries and some developing ones (the European Union, Canada, Australia, Norway, Great Britain, GRULAC, SIDS, AOSIS, High Ambition Coalition) aim at the widest possible coverage starting from the extraction stage, believing that only a broad set of measures can effectively combat plastic pollution.
The most problematic in terms of the positions of the parties and the possibility of developing the final text of the article — 3 (plastic products), 6 (supply), 11 (financial mechanism) — in the last version of the text look like a set of mutually exclusive square brackets and option zero (no text).
Article 3 defines the criteria for banning or restricting the production, distribution, use and trade of plastic products. The final text determines the scope of application of the treaty's mechanisms.
Article 6, after a number of versions, is the last to mention virgin polymers. The article includes the concept of turning off the tap: limiting plastic production as the basis for effective control of the pollution itself. The position of like-minded countries on the article is option zero, which states that “plastic does not equal plastic pollution”. In this situation, finding a compromise looks difficult.
Articles 3 and 6 essentially determine whether the future instrument will be the Plastic Treaty or the Plastic Waste Treaty.
There is a clear division on Article 11 (financial mechanism and supportive measures): developing countries support the idea of a new fund, full technology transfer, and broad information exchange, while developed countries favor the use of the existing fund and limited technology transfer. The text of 1 December lists all possible options for the organizing the fund, as well as different options for recipients, conditions, and activities of financial assistance.
At the same time, the text of 1 December has lost coverage (it previously defined that the instrument does not apply to hydrocarbons and virgin polymers), recorded discrepancies in principles, and presented several options regarding the goals and terms. For most of the articles, the text has been cleaned up and will probably not be significantly discussed or changed.
What is the result?
On Sunday afternoon, 1 December, the last day of INC-5, the final plenary session began and ended late Monday night. During the meeting, the Secretariat repeatedly emphasized that Articles 3, 6, and 11 were particularly difficult to agree on. In addition, negotiators realized the lack of time and insufficient progress made. The Secretariat therefore proposed to organize an additional resumed session with discussions based on the text of 1 December.
Like-minded countries expressed their willingness to work with the version of 29 November, citing primarily the loss of coverage in the text of 1 December, or to use the version of 1 December with the ability to make suggestions on all articles. To this, the Secretariat assured that the text was completely open for revision.
The statements of the countries at the final plenary session clearly demonstrated that significant contradictions remain on many issues. The work is complicated by the fact that no general rules have been agreed on the adoption of decisions — from agreeing on the specific text of the chapter to the adoption of the treaty as a whole — only by consensus or 2/3 of votes, so only consensus is temporarily applied. Consequently, it is necessary to coordinate the positions of all countries.
The outcome of the INC-5 was the decision that in 2025 there will be a resumed session of the INC-5.2, at which delegates will again try to finalize the text. The date and venue will be announced at a later date.
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In 2018, Evgeniy graduated from the Faculty of Geography of the Lomonosov Moscow State University with a degree in Ecology and Environmental Management. From 2017 to 2021 he worked in companies specializing in engineering surveys and was involved in the organization and execution of field work on ecology and hydrometeorology, laboratory work and passing state examination of reports. He also participated in scientific cruises. In 2020, Evgeniy graduated with the Master's degree from the Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University, specializing in Hydrometeorology. In December 2021, he has started to work at the International and Comparative Law Research Center. He prepares analytical and reference materials and methodologies on the topic of ecology and climate change, ESG factors, and also analyzes drafts of the Center's publications, their consistency and adequacy with regard to ecology, hydrometeorology, and climate change.