CIEL Calls Out Text for Eroding Trust in Multilateralism and Demands a Course Correction
GENEVA, August 10, 2026 — In response to the release of the INC Chair’s “no surprises” reference document, David Azoulay, Director of Environmental Health at the Center for International Environmental Law, issued the following statement:
“The Chair called this draft a ‘no surprises’ document, and on that count, it delivers. The text is the lowest common denominator. And it is indeed no surprise that a text developed behind closed doors, following a meeting where production, chemicals, and decision-making were kept off the formal agenda, and observers were kept out of the room, fails to reflect the science on what it will take to address the plastics crisis.
“This text seems designed with one objective in mind: To stay sufficiently empty to ensure the biggest polluters won’t reject it. This is what happens when the countries most invested in delay get to help set the agenda. But we should remember that the ultimate goal of this process is not to deliver any treaty just for the sake of an agreement; it’s to deliver a treaty that ends plastic pollution.
“The text was presented as a ‘balanced’ and ‘bridging’ reflection of Member States’ positions. Yet it removes or sidelines proposals central to an effective agreement, including global bans on problematic and unnecessary products and on chemicals proven toxic to human health.
“This is not neutral. It follows a familiar pattern in other multilateral negotiations, including the climate talks, where effectiveness is narrowed down to whatever major polluters will accept. A text that strips out measures opposed by major polluters cannot credibly be called balanced or effective.
“The text is full of brackets and options, but even its most ambitious reading shows that it will do nothing to end plastic pollution. The best available science tells us that if this treaty were adopted as it is written, it would not bring plastic production to levels compatible with climate goals, the protection of human and environmental health, or the effective elimination of plastic pollution. It contains no real legal obligations — just a formalization of the status quo, leaving each country to decide what to do on its own. This entrenches market fragmentation, fails to send the market signals needed to align investment with environmental and human rights goals, and runs counter to the UNEA-5/14 mandate to set global, legally binding rules to address a global crisis.
“The text cuts the international legal effort to address plastic pollution off at the knees, delivering a text that fails not only future generations, but present ones. Despite the Chair’s statements, this is not a bridge to an effective treaty.
“Member States have one job left before INC-5.4: reject this text. Don’t accept the results of a closed-door process that has too often eroded trust in environmental multilateralism. Don’t settle for the lowest common denominator and call it a success just because an agreement was reached. The path to the next intersessional meeting must lead to a treaty that enables international cooperation rather than constraining it, builds the transformation needed to end plastic pollution rather than locking in ever-increasing levels of it. Delegations have already rejected a lowest-common-denominator treaty twice. We urge them to do it again and rebuild effectiveness into this text before discussions resume at next month’s intersessional meeting in Bangkok.”
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