A new international treaty on plastic pollution

Joint session with IDDRI/ GRAM Lisanne Groen (Open University), and Julien Rochette (l’IDDRI)

In this presentation, you will be given an overview of the negotiation process to develop a new multilateral environmental agreement on plastic pollution. This process started in March 2022 with the adoption of a resolution of the United Nations Environment Assembly to develop an internationally legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. The first session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) was then held in November-December 2022. The fifth INC session that took place two years later at the end of 2024 was supposed to be the final session at which the new instrument should have been agreed upon, but this was not the case. A resumed fifth session (INC5.2) is currently being prepared, with the date and venue still to be confirmed. Who is taking part in the negotiations, what is at stake for them, and what is happening besides the negotiations in side events and who is involved in these will become clear in this presentation. (The speaker attended INC3 herself and her PhD student attended INC3, 4 and 5.)