An effective plastics treaty has to address production and chemicals, not just waste. A text built primarily around consensus risks locking in the lowest common denominator before formal negotiations even resume — and swaying the treaty’s most important questions before Member States are back in the room.
Published July 22, 2026
By Giulia Carlini, Manager and Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, and Cate Bonacini, Senior Communications Campaign Specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law.
In early July, heads of delegation — negotiators and diplomats representing Member States — met informally in Nairobi to discuss proposals that could bridge negotiating positions in the plastics treaty.
The Heads of Delegation (HoDs) meeting took place at a particularly challenging moment for multilateralism. Geopolitical tensions, the rise of governments prioritizing short-term economic interests over effective solutions to global crises, and repeated deadlocks in other UN processes continue to cast doubt about whether consensus-based negotiations can still deliver effective solutions.
As the latest environmental treaty negotiation, the plastics treaty has become a test of whether multilateralism can move beyond the lowest common denominator. That test matters because of what’s at stake: plastics production is on track to triple by 2050, and studies show that microplastics and the chemicals in them are appearing in human blood, lungs, placentas, and brains. Success will not be measured by whether governments reach an agreement at any cost, but by whether they deliver a treaty that is effective and fit for the purpose of ending plastic pollution — one that enables, rather than constrains, international cooperation to develop internationally legally binding rules, particularly among countries that have already expressed their readiness to have them.
Where Plastics Treaty Negotiations Stand
Negotiations stalled in August 2025 after the fifth resumed session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.2) to advance a plastics treaty concluded in Geneva without agreement on a negotiating text. Although a majority of Member States supported provisions central to the treaty’s functionality and effectiveness — including addressing unsustainable levels of plastics production and consumption, establishing globally legally binding phase-outs of problematic and avoidable plastic products and chemicals of concern, strengthening product design requirements, and enabling majority-based decision-making when consensus cannot be reached — opposition from a small number of Member States prevented these advances from being adequately reflected in the draft texts produced during the session. As a result, neither draft achieved the consensus required to serve as the basis for further negotiations, leaving the process without an agreed negotiating text.
Following his election at INC-5.3 earlier this year, the new INC Chair, Ambassador Julio Cordano of Chile, launched a roadmap to resume the negotiations, including a series of virtual and in-person meetings of the HoDs.
The first in-person HoDs meeting, held in Nairobi in July, followed an agenda structured around thematic clusters intended to identify areas of convergence. Notably, however, the agenda excluded some of the issues most central to the treaty’s long-term effectiveness — including production and consumption patterns, chemicals of concern, and decision-making.
Negotiations continue to be shaped by a fundamental disagreement over how plastic pollution should be framed. While some Member States continue to promote a treaty focused primarily on waste management, others — drawing on scientific evidence and the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) 5/14 mandate that established the INC — argue that an effective instrument must address the full life cycle of plastics and tackle the root causes of plastic pollution, not just its downstream effects.
The central question is no longer how much the treaty’s scope and global measures should be narrowed to reach consensus. It is what kind of instrument will be effective over time.
What is the “No Surprises” Document? (The INC Chair’s New “Aid to Negotiations”)
The conversations in Nairobi were intended to help flesh out what the Chair described as a new “aid to negotiations” document — also referred to as an “informal reference document” or a “no surprises” document. The Chair expects it to serve as the basis for INC-5.4 negotiations. In practice, however, it will be a new informal proposal for a draft treaty text.
The concern is that the Chair may follow the same approach familiar from other multilateral negotiations, including the climate talks, where the pursuit of consensus results in a text that reflects only areas of convergence. Applied here, that would mean reducing the treaty to the lowest common denominator — cutting measures that are essential to its effectiveness simply because they are opposed by a small number of Member States. Are we sure that what the world needs at this point is a document engineered to avoid surprising anyone? The best surprise would be a text that actually matched the ambition that the majority of Member States have been expressing for years.
Eight Signs the Negotiations Can Deliver an Effective Treaty — and Restore Trust
The “no surprises” document will be circulated in the coming weeks and will provide the first real indication of whether the process is moving towards an effective treaty or towards an agreement designed primarily to preserve consensus. More broadly, it will signal whether multilateralism can still deliver and solve shared global challenges, or whether it is increasingly constrained by the search for the lowest common denominator.
The following questions provide the clearest test of whether the negotiations are moving in the right direction:
- Scope and the full lifecycle of plastics. Does the draft text maintain the ability to address all stages of the plastics life cycle through legally binding rules, or does it narrow the treaty’s scope by excluding key sources, drivers, or pathways of plastic pollution? A treaty that limits the ability of parties to cooperate on upstream measures will not be effective.
- Global measures that can be strengthened. Does the treaty preserve the ability of Parties to develop new internationally legally binding rules over time? Nearly 100 Member States have expressed their readiness to adopt common global measures in areas such as products and chemicals of concern. National implementation is essential, but it should implement common international obligations — not replace them. A treaty built primarily around nationally determined measures would struggle to deliver coordinated global action. The text should ensure that the treaty can evolve over time to meet its objective of ending plastic pollution.
- Production and consumption: Does the treaty include meaningful measures to change current patterns of plastics production and consumption in line with climate goals and the protection of human health, human rights, and the environment? Or, does it rely on broader, ambiguous language that sustains business as usual? The question is not whether production is mentioned, but whether the treaty can address the root causes of plastic pollution.
- Chemicals and products of concern, protecting health and human rights: Does the treaty establish internationally legally binding measures to phase out problematic and avoidable plastic products and chemicals of concern? Does it protect people’s health, the right to a healthy environment, and other human rights? Does it have the potential to create a science-based mechanism to identify, assess, and update those products and chemicals over time, supported by clear criteria and transparency? This is essential not only for reducing plastic pollution but also for protecting human rights and health. Hazardous chemicals in plastics are linked to reproductive and developmental harm, endocrine disruption, and other serious health impacts.
- Means of implementation: Does the treaty commit to establishing additional, concessional, dedicated, predictable, and accessible financial and other means of implementation, or does it rely primarily on existing funds and voluntary contributions? Does it clarify who is expected to pay, and does that align with the polluter-pays principle and the principle of equity? It is important to clarify who is expected to provide financial support and whether the approach reflects the polluter-pays principle and the principle of equity.
- Decision-making: Will future decisions under the treaty be taken exclusively by consensus? Or will the treaty provide for voting as a last resort when all efforts to reach an agreement have been exhausted? Without a fallback voting mechanism, a single Party could indefinitely block implementation, preventing the treaty from evolving in response to new scientific evidence and implementation needs.
- National Implementation Plans/National Action Plans (NIPs/NAPs): Are NIPs designed to implement the treaty, or to become the treaty? National flexibility is essential, but it should serve to implement common internationally legally binding obligations, not replace them. A treaty that relies primarily on nationally determined approaches risks fragmented implementation, uneven ambition, and ultimately falling short of its objective to end plastic pollution.
- The negotiating baseline: Does the “Aid to Negotiations” reflect the progress already achieved and supported by a majority of Member States, or does it redefine the negotiations around the lowest level of current convergence? A text designed primarily around consensus risks swaying key political questions before formal negotiations even resume.
Taken together, these aren’t just questions of legal drafting, they are a test of whether the treaty is being designed to remain effective over time. A text that narrows its scope, weakens global measures, relies primarily on nationally-determined implementation, prevents Parties from developing future internationally legally binding rules, and locks implementation into consensus-based decision-making would not simply weaken the agreement. It would impact multilateralism too.
That is not what the world needs. The world needs a treaty that signals that multilateralism is still capable of designing institutions and instruments that evolve, respond to science, and deliver what multilateralism was created for: enabling international joint action to solve problems that no country can solve alone.
Why the Next Plastics Treaty Draft Matters
The next negotiating text will do more than form the basis for INC-5.4 — it will reveal whether this process is moving towards an effective treaty or towards an agreement defined by the limits of consensus. A text that preserves the elements needed for effectiveness can provide negotiators with a foundation for building a treaty capable of addressing plastic pollution at its roots while maintaining the ability to develop stronger common rules over time. But a text that locks in the lowest common denominator would not only fail to address the scale and complexity of the crisis, it would deepen the growing perception that multilateralism is no longer capable of delivering solutions to global challenges.
How such treaty decisions are reached is equally important. An effective treaty requires a transparent, science-based process that enables meaningful participation by rights holders, including Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, independent scientists, women, children and youth, unions, and civil society organizations. As with other processes involving regulatory decisions, maintaining the integrity of negotiations requires both meaningful access for independent expertise and affected peoples, and communities, and robust conflict-of-interest safeguards to ensure that actors with direct commercial interests do not unduly influence outcomes or place additional pressure on ambitious negotiators.
The stakes of the plastics treaty, therefore, extend far beyond plastic pollution itself. They are about whether multilateralism can still evolve, respond to science, and deliver effective action when the world needs it most.