Stockholm (NordSIP) – International environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are urging delegates at the second part of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (better known as INC-5.2) to reject the latest draft.
The draft treaty text proposed by INC 5.2 Chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso has also been condemned as unacceptable by the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK). More than 100 countries have been calling for the treaty to include legally binding targets for the reduction of plastic production and the regulation of the many chemicals used in the manufacturing process.
This second part of the fifth session was convened as an extraordinary measure following the failure of what had been intended as the final round of negotiations in Busan, Republic of Korea in November 2024. The two-year long process has been beset by controversy, mainly regarding lack of access by indigenous peoples’ representatives and other civil society groups. There have also been allegations of aggressive lobbying and interference by a growing number of petrochemical industry lobbyists, who according to the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) outnumber all other national or civil society delegations at INC 5.2.
The consensus curse
Another major obstacle has been the decision to implement consensus-based rather than the two-thirds majority voting that is applicable in some other UN-sponsored initiatives. This has meant that a small number of oil, plastic, and petrochemical producing nations like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran have been able to impose their requirements on the draft treaty text. This has resulted in the latest iteration not only excluding any production limits, but also previously accepted wording being removed or weakened. The United States (US) and the petrochemical industry have been pushing for the treaty to focus on downstream waste management and recycling rather than any reduction in the production of raw plastics.
In a reaction echoing that of many other NGOs, David Azoulay Head of Delegation and Environmental Health Program Director at CIEL said: “The new chair’s text makes a mockery of a three-year-long consultative process that showed broad support for an ambitious plastics treaty that addresses the full lifecycle of plastics, including production. While there are token references to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), human rights, and human health, the provisions that follow undermine any and all measures that follow. This is a treaty that all but ensures that nothing will change. It gives in to petrostate and industry demands with weak, voluntary measures that guarantee we continue to produce plastic at increasing levels indefinitely, fail to safeguard human health, endanger the environment, and damn future generations. It will be very difficult to come back from this, and we encourage Member States to reject the text.”
Should the delegates fail to sufficiently improve the draft text by the deadline of today, 14 August 2025, many NGOs are calling for it to be rejected outright rather than accept an ineffective treaty. Zero Waste Europe’s Joan Marc Simon suggests that the many ambitious countries could work on setting up their own multilateral treaty outside of the scope of the UN.
The INC process has failed
Stop press: The session concluded at 2 a.m. on Friday 15 August. An amended draft text had been put forward that contained a few concessions aimed at the ‘high ambition’ countries. However, it still failed to address legally binding production caps and was deemed unacceptable by the majority of delegates. INC 5.2 has therefore closed without a global plastic treaty being agreed, and the Chair announed the UN’s intention to reconvene. However, most NGOs and other observers believe that the INC process has failed and would prefer to see the EU, UK, and other high ambition nations proceed without the involvement of the petrostates.
Reacting to the final outcome, CIEL’s David Azoulay said: “While the negotiations will continue, they will fail if the process does not change. When a process is broken, as this one is, it is essential for countries to identify the necessary solutions to fix it and then do it. We need a restart, not a repeat performance. Countries that want a treaty must now leave this process and form a treaty of the willing. And that process must include options for voting that deny the tyranny of consensus we have watched play out here.”
