Some notes on the Global Plastics Treaty.
It seems that the outcome of these negotiations will decide whether we fix the plastics problem or lock it in for another generation.
I made this short visualization to map the seven areas covered in the obligations of the treaty as elements in the broken bathtub system
A few days ago, I had the chance to attend a panel on the Global Plastics Treaty as part of an initiative between Maastricht University and Brightlands Chemelot Campus. Even though my PhD focused on circularity and sustainable development, this was one of the first times I saw how those principles (try to) translate to the world of international environmental law.
I have always prided myself on embracing complexity, but this session revealed a dimension of complexity that is not often found in research, the layer of power, negotiation, diplomacy and legal architecture that shapes the very rules within which (circular) systems will need to operate in the near future.
I am not an expert on the Global Plastics Treaty. I attended simply as a participant. An observer with a circularity lens rather than a legal one. What follows is my attempt at summarizing what was said in such event, from the viewpoint of someone trying to understand how the rules of the game are being rewritten at a global scale.
The size of the problem:
Global plastic production has surpassed 400 million tons per year and is projected to double by 2040 and triple by 2060. Less than 10% is effectively recycled and the rest is burned, landfilled, or leaks into the environment. The imbalance between production growth and end-of-life management capacity is what opened the door for a legally binding global treaty, and not just a voluntary pledge.
The goal of the treaty:
The UN Resolution 5/14 launched negotiations for a legally binding global treaty to end plastic pollution across the entire life cycle. The initial goal was to move beyond plastic waste management and towards a full system redesign. In essence, we are trying to develop the “operating manual” for plastics before the machine overheats. This full system approach has been met with a lot of resistance.
Formal negotiations for the treaty began in 2022 under the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), bringing together 184 countries. Progress has been slow because decisions are made by consensus, meaning that any single country can block any decision. The process is currently at the drafting stage, where the general agreements are being written. Even if this text is finalized and potentially approved, each country must still ratify it domestically before it becomes legally binding. This means that a state can delay the process, dilute the treaty’s ambition, obstruct others, and ultimately choose not to ratify it.
Several panelists looked genuinely tired of this process, comparing it to Winston Churchill’s famous remark about democracy: “the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried.” Despite the slow pace and power asymmetries, they insisted that this remains the best path forward. As one speaker put it: “diplomacy doesn’t work. Until it does.”
Power dynamics throughout the negotiating process
The treaty is officially a member state–driven process (i.e., negotiated and decided by national governments rather than international organizations or NGOs). In practice, however, power is unevenly distributed. Wealthier countries send large delegations able to follow every working group, while many developing countries have only one or two delegates, making it nearly impossible to attend the many parallel sessions. Observers (such as citizens, academics, businesses, and waste pickers) may join open sessions, but are excluded from the closed “informal” or “informal-informal” meetings, where the real negotiations take place. As a result, those most affected by plastic pollution are often least present when the rules are written.
Within this unequal playing field, three major coalitions dominate the process:
1. The High Ambition Coalition (HAC): led by the EU, Small Island States, and several countries from Africa and Latin America, pushes for binding global rules across the entire plastic life cycle, including production limits and financing mechanisms to support transition and cleanup.
2. The Like-Minded Group: composed mainly of petrochemical-producing and fossil-dependent economies, such as Saudi Arabia, India, and other Gulf and Asian countries, advocates for nationally determined, voluntary, and waste management-focused approaches.
3. Not officially a group, but certainly important are also the bridging countries, including China and South Africa, which endorse a full life-cycle perspective but oppose explicit production limits.
Geopolitically, it was said at the plenary, that this negotiation (and its divides) is not a North–South dialogue, but a Producer-Receiver duo, in an era with a much more assertive south and a changing world order. Producer countries defend their right for industrial growth, and consumer economies want to see a reduction in plastic waste with a fair and shared responsibility.
What is actually being negotiated?
I learned in this session that the treaty under discussion is built around three main blocs:
Obligations: the general rules that countries would have to follow, covering everything from how plastics are produced and designed to how waste and pollution are managed.
Means of implementation: the financing, technology transfer, and capacity-building that would make those obligations feasible, especially for developing countries.
Governance and monitoring: the legal mechanisms that will keep the treaty adaptable and accountable over time (for example, how decisions are taken by the future Conference of the Parties, or COP).
Within the obligations, there are the seven main levers of change currently being negotiated, located in a spectrum from upstream to downstream:
Sustainable production: The most contentious issue (also for the audience). Some countries want to cap virgin plastic production to “turn off the tap,” while petrochemical producers reject limits as threats to their economic sovereignty. Others propose indirect controls (like banning specific polymers, additives, or single-use items) to curb demand without calling it a cap.
Chemicals and transparency: The idea is to regulate toxic additives and undisclosed substances, introducing traceability and disclosure rules along the value chain. This is a (politically acceptable) way to address harmful plastics without directly restricting production volumes.
Product design: Broad agreement exists that design is the engine of circularity. Harmonized global standards for recyclability, reusability, and toxicity reduction are under discussion. Even business representatives emphasize the need for consistent global rules to avoid a patchwork of national regulations.
Releases and leakages: This has to do with stopping mismanaged waste from entering water bodies and ecosystems. I perceived that this is politically easier to agree on than to regulate in reality, which reinforces the importance of upstream measures.
Waste management: This is where many producer countries focus: improving collection, recycling, and energy recovery infrastructure. This is without a doubt important, however, the counter argument is that even the most advanced recycling systems cannot keep pace with production growth.
Existing pollution: Cleanup of legacy pollution (ocean debris, illegal dump sites, etc.) is widely supported but remains vague and underfunded. As one panelist clearly stated “The treaty’s job is to stop the flow, not just clean the mess.”
Just Transition: A cross-cutting principle ensuring fairness and inclusion for workers, waste pickers, and vulnerable countries. It seems that just is quite a short word for a long and complex process.
Means of Implementation
Apart of defining these obligations, negotiations must agree on the processes and means of implementation, in other words: who pays, who receives, and who decides the use of what is being paid. It seems that there is a chicken-and-the-egg situation: Developing countries insist they can only commit to ambitious obligations if funding, knowledge and support are guaranteed. Developed countries respond that they will only provide funding if obligations are ambitious (and binding).
To break the standoff, negotiators are exploring new financial mechanisms. One proposal is a levy on virgin polymer production, so that those who profit from plastics contribute directly to cleanup and transition efforts (a practical interpretation of the polluter pays principle).
It seems that this is not just about money, but about fairness, inclusion and truthful implementation, perhaps shaped by past failures where funding was mismanaged or enforcement ignored local realities.
The real deal: The COP
Once the treaty is adopted, its evolution will be governed by a Conference of the Parties (COP) , which is the body responsible for translating the agreement into concrete actions such as updating product bans, chemical lists, financing mechanisms, and reporting systems. The COP matters immensely because the initial treaty text will function more as a skeleton of broad principles, with many details to be defined later. This means countries must not only reach agreement now but also establish decision-making rules that allow the COP to act and strengthen the treaty over time. However, if the COP operates solely by consensus, a single country could block progress indefinitely. To prevent such paralysis, more than 120 nations now support a fallback voting mechanism that would allow decisions to move forward once all good-faith efforts at consensus are exhausted. The Like-Minded Group opposes this idea.
Final thoughts
Since becoming a sustainability researcher, I have grown increasingly aware of the crucial role that policy and regulation play in shaping systems. As Donella Meadows puts it:
“changing the rules of the game is one of the most powerful leverage points for a system’s transformation. ”
Still, I had never been truly sensitized to how those rules are actually made, and the political, geographic, economic, and social complexity that a single comma, addition, or deletion can bring to a treaty text. Witnessing that process up close was truly fascinating (hence this reflection). It seems to me that this treaty is not just about plastic pollution. It’s about who gets to write the rules, who pays to implement them, who has the power to block them later, and what is each country willing to accept under a challenging, and changing, world order.
