IISD, January 2025
Governments adopted Resolution 5/14 to launch negotiations on a treaty to address plastic pollution at the fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi, Kenya, in March 2022. Negotiations took place under the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) umbrella and were to conclude by the end of 2024. An Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) was created to conduct the negotiations. There have been five INC sessions, with the latest in Busan, Republic of Korea, in December 2024. INC-1 took place in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in November 2022, INC-2 in Paris, France, in June 2023, INC-3 in Nairobi in November 2023, and INC-4 in Ottawa, Canada, in April 2024.
The INC is to be guided by rules of procedure that set rules for decision making by state parties. However, similar to the impasse that has plagued the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), there is still no agreement on these rules. By contrast, the rules for the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Convention) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) have been adopted from the outset. The INC draft rules of procedure require all efforts to reach consensus, but if consensus is not possible, allow for a vote, with a two-thirds majority required for a decision to be adopted. However, as the rules of procedure have yet to be agreed upon, the INC continues to work based on consensus.
