Established in 2010

International Environmental Negotiation Process

Negotiating the Global Plastics Treaty: Law-Making under Pressure

January 5, 2026

The year 2025 marks a critical phase in the negotiation of a legally binding international instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, one of the most ambitious multilateral environmental law-making processes currently underway. Mandated by United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) resolution 5/14 adopted in March 2022, the negotiations are taking place under intense political, scientific, and societal pressure, with states committed to concluding the treaty by the end of 2025 amid escalating evidence of the environmental, health, and economic impacts of plastic pollution.¹

The negotiations are conducted through the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which in 2025 entered a decisive stage focused on consolidating the treaty text and resolving core political divergences. INC sessions held throughout 2024–2025 brought together representatives of UN Member States, UN agencies, scientific bodies, industry stakeholders, and civil society organizations, reflecting the broad and cross-sectoral nature of the plastics challenge. The urgency of the negotiations has been reinforced by mounting scientific data confirming the pervasive presence of plastics across ecosystems, including the marine environment, food chains, and human bodies.²

Plastic pollution has increasingly been framed as a global commons problem, requiring collective action that transcends national borders and sectoral regulatory approaches. This framing has resonated strongly with ongoing discussions under Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Life Below Water), particularly target 14.1, which calls for the prevention and significant reduction of marine pollution of all kinds. Throughout the 2025 negotiations, several delegations explicitly linked the plastics treaty to the achievement of SDG 14, emphasizing that failure to address plastic pollution comprehensively would undermine broader ocean governance and sustainable development objectives.

A central point of contention in the negotiations remains the scope and ambition of the future treaty. A growing coalition of states, supported by scientific experts and civil society, has advocated for binding global obligations addressing the full life cycle of plastics, including upstream measures such as limitations on virgin plastic production, product design requirements, and the phase-out of problematic and avoidable plastic products. Other states have favored a more flexible framework emphasizing national discretion, downstream waste management, and voluntary national action plans, citing concerns related to development priorities, trade implications, and differentiated national capacities.

The “zero draft” and subsequent revised texts produced by the INC Secretariat have attempted to bridge these positions by combining binding global objectives with nationally determined implementation pathways. Key provisions under negotiation include global reduction targets, extended producer responsibility schemes, financial mechanisms, technology transfer, and compliance and reporting arrangements.³ The question of whether the treaty should include common but differentiated responsibilities, and how differentiation should be operationalized, has also been a recurring and contentious issue.

Importantly, the 2025 negotiations have explicitly engaged with regional experiences, including those of the Mediterranean environmental governance framework. Mediterranean states and UNEP/MAP representatives have highlighted the region’s long-standing efforts under the Barcelona Convention to address marine litter and plastic pollution, presenting them as a potential model for translating global commitments into regionally coordinated action. These interventions have underscored the importance of coherence between the global plastics treaty and existing regional regimes, particularly in semi-enclosed seas such as the Mediterranean, where pollution pressures are acute and cumulative.

Procedural and participatory dimensions have also been central to the 2025 negotiation phase. The INC process has featured unprecedented levels of engagement by non-state actors, including Indigenous Peoples, youth groups, scientists, and representatives of coastal communities. While this inclusiveness has enhanced the legitimacy and transparency of the process, it has also tested traditional negotiation formats and highlighted tensions between broad participation and the need for timely decision-making.

Statements by UNEP leadership in 2025 have repeatedly characterized the plastics treaty negotiations as a defining test for contemporary multilateralism. The UNEP Executive Director emphasized that the treaty has the potential to become a cornerstone of global pollution governance, comparable in normative significance to the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.⁴ At the same time, she warned that a weak or fragmented outcome would risk undermining confidence in international environmental law’s capacity to respond to urgent planetary challenges.

For MEPIELAN, the 2025 phase of the global plastics treaty negotiations constitute a highly relevant case of international environmental negotiation under pressure, illustrating how scientific evidence, participatory governance, regional experience, and geopolitical interests interact in real time. The process highlights the importance of relational approaches to international law-making and underscores the need for coherence between global norms, regional environmental regimes, and the implementation of SDG 14 in protecting the marine environment as an international common interest for present and future generations.

 

Electronic Sources:

  1. United Nations Environment Assembly, Resolution 5/14, End Plastic Pollution: Towards an International Legally Binding Instrument, UNEP/EA.5/Res.14, March 2022. https://www.unep.org/environmentassembly/unea5/resolutions
  2. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), From Pollution to Solution: A Global Assessment of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution, 2021; updates presented to the INC, 2023– https://www.unep.org/resources/report/pollution-solution-global-assessment-marine-litter-and-plastic-pollution
  3. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, Revised Draft Text of an International Legally Binding Instrument on Plastic Pollution, INC documentation, 2024–2025.

https://www.unep.org/inc-plastic-pollution/documents

UNEP/MAP, Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management in the Mediterranean, adopted under the Barcelona Convention and its Protocol for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution from Land-Based Sources

  1. United Nations Environment Programme, Statement by the Executive Director at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, 2025. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/statements
  2. United Nations, Turning off the Tap: How the World Can End Plastic Pollution and Create a Circular Economy, UN Reports, 2023–2024. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/plastic-pollution
  3. UNEP/MAP, Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management in the Mediterranean in the Framework of Article 15 of the Protocol for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution from Land-Based Sources, adopted by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention, as amended and implemented through subsequent COP decisions.
    https://www.unep.org/unepmap/resources/legally-binding-instruments/regional-plan-marine-litter-
  4. United Nations, Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water – Targets and Indicators, in particular target 14.1 on preventing and significantly reducing marine pollution of all kinds, including marine debris.
    https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/oceans/

 

About the author

MEPIELAN Centre
Author's Website

MEPIELAN Centre is an international research, training and educational centre established by Professor Evangelos Raftopoulos at the Panteion University of Athens in 2008.

Before its establishment as a University Centre, MEPIELAN operated as a successful international research, training and informational programme (2002-2007) under the scientific direction of Professor Evangelos Raftopoulos and the aegis of the Panteion University of Athens, supported by the Mediterranean Action Plan/UNEP and the Greek Ministry of the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works.

MEPIELAN Centre is an accredited UNEP/MAP PARTNER (since 2013), a Member of the Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development (MCSD) (since 2016), and a Member of the Steering Committee of the MCSD (since 2019).

On 22 May 2022, MEPIELAN Centre proceeded to the development of MEPIELAN as a Non- Profit Civil Organization (INGO) for the more effective and efficient advancement of its Goals and Missions and furtherance of its activities. MEPIELAN Centre as a Non- Profit Civil Organization (INGO) is registered in Greek Law (Hellenic Business Registry, Reg. No. 16477300100) in accordance with Laws 4072/2012 & 4919/2022 as applicable

Related artifacts

Environmental Governance Regimes
COP24 Barcelona Convention: The Cairo Declaration and the Future of Mediterranean Environmental Governance

COP24 Barcelona Convention: The Cairo Declaration and the Future of Mediterranean Environmental Governance

The 24th Meeting of the Contracting Parties (COP24) to the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean (Barcelona Convention) was held in Cairo, Egypt, from 2 to 5 December 2025, marking a landmark moment for Mediterranean environmental governance. COP24 coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) and 30 years of the post-Rio Barcelona Convention framework, underscoring the enduring relevance of regional cooperation in addressing shared environmental challenges.

Read more text

| Jan 5, 2026 | 6 min read

Editorial Archives

MEPIELAN Activities Forum

Articles Archives

Opinions Archives

Documents & Cases Archives

Books Archives

All News Archives

Thematic News Archives

Member News Archives

Obituaries Archives

Editorial Archives

MEPIELAN Activities Forum

Articles Archives

Opinions Archives

Documents & Cases Archives

Books Archives

All News Archives

Thematic News Archives

Member News Archives

Obituaries Archives

About MEPIELAN eBulletin

MEPIELAN E-Bulletin is a digital academic and practitioner newsletter of the MEPIELAN Centre, launched in 2010.  It features insight articles, reflective opinions, specially selected documents and cases, book reviews as well as news on thematic topics of direct interest of MEPIELAN Centre and on the activities and role of MEPIELAN Centre. Its content bridges theory and practice perspectives of relational international law, international environmental law and participatory governance , and international negotiating process, thus serving the primary goal of Centre: to develop an integrated, inter-disciplinary, relational, context-related and sustainably effective governance approach creating, protecting and advancing international common interest for the present and future generations. Providing a knowledge- and information-sharing platform and a scholarly forum, the Bulletin promotes innovative ideas and enlightened critical views, contributing to a broader scholarly debate on important issues of international common interest. The audience of the Bulletin includes academics, practitioners, researchers, university students, international lawyers, officials and personnel of international organizations and institutional arrangements, heads and personnel of national authorities at all levels (national, regional and local), and members of the civil society at large.