Standoff at the four-way stop sign: late-night diplomacy at the fourth session of negotiations (INC-4) on the global treaty to end plastic pollution

Abstract

Within the final session of negotiations inching forward, the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) completed its fourth session of negotiations (out of five) on an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) to “end plastic pollution.” This paper examines the results of the fourth session of negotiations INC-4, which took place from April 23 to 29th, 2024, in Ottawa, Canada. In this perspective paper, we analyze the trends, barriers, and themes shaping the emerging treaty text. Progress towards consensus on financial mechanisms and waste management was prevalent. This paper is based on close participant observations and document analysis throughout the negotiations, it became apparent that nearly all of the core obligations of the treaty came into brackets, which means states do not agree on text. There was additional divergence when it came to the inclusion of the production side of plastics in the treaty. We conclude by looking towards the fifth and expected final session round of negotiations in Busan, South Korea, in December 2024 by discussing if and how the plastic treaty will be effective when the full life cycle starting from production is not taken into account.

Full text

Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-024-00999-x
RESEARCH BRIEF
Standoff atthefour‑way stop sign: late‑night diplomacy atthefourth
session ofnegotiations (INC‑4) ontheglobal treaty toend plastic
pollution
RachelTiller1 · EmilyCowan1 · InaHeleneAhlquist1 · TheodoreTiller1
Accepted: 8 December 2024
© The Author(s) 2024
Abstract
Within the final session of negotiations inching forward, the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Negotiating Commit-
tee (INC) completed its fourth session of negotiations (out of five) on an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) to
“end plastic pollution.” This paper examines the results of the fourth session of negotiations INC-4, which took place from
April 23 to 29th, 2024, in Ottawa, Canada. In this perspective paper, we analyze the trends, barriers, and themes shaping the
emerging treaty text. Progress towards consensus on financial mechanisms and waste management was prevalent. This paper
is based on close participant observations and document analysis throughout the negotiations, it became apparent that nearly
all of the core obligations of the treaty came into brackets, which means states do not agree on text. There was additional
divergence when it came to the inclusion of the production side of plastics in the treaty. We conclude by looking towards the
fifth and expected final session round of negotiations in Busan, South Korea, in December 2024 by discussing if and how
the plastic treaty will be effective when the full life cycle starting from production is not taken into account.
Keywords Plastics· Governance· Treaty· UNEP· Global· INC· Agreement-making
Introduction
I can see and feel the goodwill and readiness of every
state in this process to take us to the goal we all long
for.—His Excellency Luis Vayas Valdivieso, of Ecua-
dor, Chair of INC4-5 at the opening session on April
23rd, 2024
The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating
Committee (INC-4) to develop an international legally bind-
ing instrument (ILBI) on plastic pollution, including in the
marine environment, took place from 23 to 29 April 2024 at
the Shaw Center in Ottawa, Canada, only five months after
the conclusion of the third meeting in Nairobi (Cowan etal.
2024b). The goals of the emerging treaty, which the text was
being negotiated on for the fourth time, were broad—end
plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. The
question many asked themselves before this INC-4, however,
was whether this in fact would be a possible goal to reach.
For the first days of the negotiations though, optimism was
high, and the end was within sight! The agenda of the week
was on the pre-agreed list of key negotiating points resulting
from INC-3, namely Part II of the draft treaty text, which
listed the 13 core obligations that the treaty could poten-
tially include (see Table1). These obligations, well estab-
lished and agreed upon prior to the start of INC-4 (UNEP
2024a), were still subject to divergent opinions from delega-
tions during INC-4, and examples of standoffs at a four-way
A standoff at a four-way intersections with individual stop signs
refers to a traffic situation in which four cars reach an intersection
with individual stop signs at the same time, complicating traffic
patterns since neither driver knows who should take the right of
way and all drivers are yielding to the right. Though this is not a
situation that is common in Europe, where roundabouts are the
norm, this is not unusual in North-America and South Africa. This
is a stand-off, where all traffic is stopped until one of the drivers
takes a chance and makes the first move by going through the stop
sign. In doing this, the other cars are able to once more follow
the traffic rules and go in the prescribed order. We use this as a
metaphor for INC4 to signify that the negotiators are all stuck and
somebody needs to make the first move (and concessions) to solve
the standstill because of diverging opinions during negotiations.
* Rachel Tiller
Rachel.tiller@sintef.no
1 SINTEF Ocean, Brattørkaia 17C, 7010Trondheim, Norway

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
Table 1 Themes of the different subgroups during INC-4 in Ottawa, Canada. The contact group was further divided into three subgroups, and contact group 2 was subdivided into two sub-
groups
At the start of the week fishing gear was to be taken up jointly by SG1.2 and SG1.3, by the middle of the week it was agreed to be taken up in SG1.3 solely as the work in SG1.2 proved demand-
ing
Contact group 1 Contact group 2
SG1.1 SG1.2 SG1.3 SG2.1 SG2.2
Part I:
1. Preamble
2. Objective
3. Definitions
4. Principles
5. Scope
Part II:
12. Just transition
13bis. Overarching provisions
related to Part II
Part II:
1. Primary Plastic Polymers
2. Chemicals
3. Problematic plastics
3bis. Micro- & nanoplastics
4. Exemptions
4bis. Dedicated programme of work
5. Product design
6. Non-plastic substitutes
10a. Trade – chemicals, polymers &
products
13. Transparency, tracking, monitor-
ing & labelling
Part II:
7. Extended Producer Responsibil-
ity EPR
8. Emissions and releases throughout
the life cycle of plastics
9a. Plastics Waste mgmt
9b. Waste mgmt.—Fishing Gear
10b. Transboundary movement –
trade in plastics
11. Existing plastic pollution, incl in
the marine environment
Part III:
1. Financing
2. Capacity-building, technical
assistance & technology transfer
Part IV:
1. National Plans
2. Implementation & compliance
3. Reporting on progress
4. Periodic assessment
5. International cooperation
6. Information exchange
7. Awareness-raising, education &
research
8. Stakeholder engagement
8bis. Health aspect
Part V:
1. Governing body
2. Subsidiary body
3. Secretariat
Part VI:
1. Possible annexes

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
intersection were looming even before negotiations com-
menced. The UNEP Executive Secretary, during the opening
of the negotiations, stated that there still was hope that this
fine needle could be threaded—and, she emphasized, that
this was all within the power of the negotiators who had
come to Ottawa for precisely this purpose.
The aim of the first day of negotiations, however, was to
move swiftly from statements, congratulations and pleas-
antries into substantial matters, so that the negotiators could
get started on massaging the text of the draft treaty text that
they had received at the end of 2023. The plenary session
was therefore adjourned in the afternoon, and the delegates
moved into the contact groups for more substantial discus-
sions that were to take place the rest of the week.
The current article is the fourth in a series in the Journal
of Environmental Studies and Sciences series on the global
plastic treaty (GPT) negotiations (Cowan 2024; Cowan etal.
2024a, b). The overarching research question for this series
focuses on “What shaped the outcomes of the final plastic
treaty?”, including both the design of the agreement and
how many (and which) states choose to ratify it at the end if
it is adopted. In each of the articles following the INCs, we
examine the progress of negotiations, evaluate the changing
draft text, and identify key areas of divergence, as well as
patterns and trends in the negotiations that can shed light on
what is influencing the emerging text of the plastic treaty.
Our research question for this specific article centers
on the following: What shaped the outcome of the plastics
treaty and led to the disappointing result of “treaty hypertro-
phy”1 during INC-4? We consider this by first giving a brief
description of the methodology used in this work (described
in detail in (Cowan 2024)), followed by some contextual
background on the negotiations and the challenges it faced.
We then give an overview of the discussions towards the
newest version of the draft treaty text to be used for further
discussions during the intersessional work and discuss the
three main parts that were circulated prior to the meeting and
updated after the conclusion of INC-4.
Methods
Since the start of the negotiations, there has been a growing
number of popular science and peer-reviewed scientific liter-
ature on the topic of the negotiations, primarily focusing on
what elements the treaty should include in the end (Aanesen
etal. 2024; Ambrose 2023; Bergmann etal. 2022; Brandon
etal. 2023; Dauvergne 2023; Dreyer etal. 2024; English
2023; Farrelly etal. 2024; Maes etal. 2023; Mendenhall
2023; O’Hare and Nøklebye 2024; Sousa 2024; Syberg etal.
2024; Walker 2022). The focus of our series of articles has
been to move into the negotiations properly and assess pre-
cisely these elements, highlighting the negotiations from an
observational research standpoint. Our first article on the
negotiations from INC-1 (November 2022) included first and
foremost detailed presentations of the methodology used to
follow the negotiations, as well as an initial draft of the data-
set from the first negotiating session (Cowan 2024). After
this, there was a long road ahead towards negotiations on
substantial matters in INC-2, as the first session of nego-
tiations had only included plenary discussions and national
statements reaffirming the need for a treaty based on the
UNEA 5/14 mandate (Tiller etal. 2022; UNEA 2022). In the
analysis of INC-2 (May 2023), we were able to dive deeper
and explore among others how procedural matters, like the
rules of procedures, stalled negotiations entirely—which
continued into the third and fourth sessions of negotiations
as well and is expected to be negotiated on again at INC-
5. It was also this first real negotiation INC that countries
firmly stated their diverging viewpoints of a future treaty.
The dividing line was between those who wanted to focus
on regulating the entire life-cycle of plastics—including
their production—and those who considered the problem
to be one that is best solved with proper waste management
(Cowan etal. 2024a). During the third session of negotia-
tions, INC-3 (November 2023), the first draft treaty text
guided the negotiations more (UNEP 2023). This was the
first INC where countries negotiated on the core obliga-
tions that the treaty could potentially include once it went
into force. This negotiating session also further solidified
the diverging viewpoints from earlier INCs on what part of
the plastics lifecycle should be included in the future treaty
(i.e., extraction, production, use, end-of-life, or a mixture of
them) (see Cowan etal. 2024b for more details).
For the purposes of this fourth article, we utilize the same
ethnographic research methods, which rely on researchers
“being there” as participants in the event. This “…enables
a researcher to embed themselves in a specific community
in a way that can provide in-depth coverage and analysis of
policy issues that are often rendered invisible if we use other
methods…” (Pacheco-Vega 2020). Participating in each of
the plastic treaty negotiation sessions and coding the nar-
ratives thereof also made us as researchers attentive to the
non-textual aspects of the negotiations, such as the “…tone,
mood, pauses, hunger, laughter, tears, and other elements
that define the negotiations, but are not captured in a stand-
ard textual record.” (Mendenhall etal. 2023), which we also
captured in the datasets with comments such as[laughter in
the room] or [applause from the observers] or [chocolate is
1 Treaty hypertrophy is a term describing the excessive expansion
of treaty text, marked by numerous bracketed elements that signify
disagreement and lack of consensus. Originally used in economics
as “excessive growth or complexity” and in general as “excessive
growth of any kind”.

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
being passed around and delegates are saying thank you, and
the mood in the room feels lighter] and similar.
In this article, we share information about the progress
of the GPT negotiations, though at the request of the
INC secretariat from INC-2 onwards of no media cover-
age when the negotiations are not in plenary, our analy-
sis is anonymized. This has led to identifying features of
speakers such as their names, states, group affiliations, or
observer status being removed when referencing the nego-
tiations during contact and subgroup sessions (the latter
during INC-4). It also makes it difficult to share the dataset
for transparency reasons prior to proper anonymization.
Where specific states or coalitions are mentioned by name
in the article, this information is already publicly avail-
able on the INC website, were spoken in plenary, or are
text proposals or statements voluntarily uploaded by del-
egations, or the oral reports of the facilitators.2 Through-
out the first four INCs, we coded the narratives from the
negotiations by first collecting them in Microsoft Word
or Google Docs, after which they were spell-checked and
moved into Microsoft Excel (see Cowan (2024)) for data
from INC1 as an example). During our analysis, the coded
interventions by states, observers, and groups were exam-
ined and compared with previous positions as well as the
context of the INC in progress. This suite of articles will
allow us to, post-treaty adoption, give a thorough over-
view of the process that has underpinned the Plastic treaty
negotiations, and assess key causal mechanisms and ten-
sions that may have had an influence on the effectiveness
of the ILBI post-implementation.
Due to the urgency of these negotiations being completed
by the end of 2024, the chair of the negotiations Ambassador
Luis Vayas Valdivieso of Ecuador provided a Scenario Note
that was circulated prior to the meeting, describing both the
objectives of the meeting and his suggestions for modali-
ties to achieve these (Valdivieso 2024). As the negotiations
were already running over schedule, and there was strong
urgency to finalize an agreement, all seven days of INC-4
included two—and at one point three—parallel sessions,
which required delegations (and the authors of this article)
to split into different groups to be able to cover all topics.
The author team of this article was able to have 1–2 persons
at all parallel meetings during these seven days of INC-4 in
Ottawa, Canada.
Challenges duringINC‑4
Like the other INCs, there were some challenges when so
many participants are gathered at the same location for a
short period of time, including in terms of the working
environment for all participants, of which there were 1316
registered state delegates and more than 2600 registered
observers at INC-4 (Tiller and Cowan 2024). Access to the
premises and the de facto real participation by observers had
also been a concern prior to INC-4. This was because, dur-
ing the previous two INCs, there had been limited access to
the plenary sessions to observers due to overcapacity, given
the great interest in the topic by civil society. Because of
the size of the venue in Ottawa, Canada, however, observers
(including from IGOs or NGOs) were allowed in the venue
without restrictions, increasing the possibilities for academic
research, including ethnographic observations, and impor-
tantly, interventions from NGOs that hold governments
accountable. However, verbal interventions by observers
were still rarely allowed during the week of INC-4 given
the time constraint of negotiation, and observer organiza-
tions were therefore encouraged to instead submit written
statements or speak on behalf of larger groups if possible.
By the end of the negotiating session and at the time of
writing, groups of observers had submitted 23 statements
(one statement representing the views of several observer
organizations) and 91 statements had been submitted by
individual observer organizations to the UNEP website
(UNEP 2024b), providing delegates with critical input from
experts in different areas touched upon by the treaty text
for consideration. In addition to the lack of speaking time
during the negotiations, observers were also challenged by
limited seating arrangements with tables or power outlets,
making working conditions difficult at times for this group
of participants. Internet connectivity in the venue was also a
challenge throughout the negotiations, though worse during
the first two days, which affected all participants, including
member states participants as well.
Through active participation, it became clear that an
additional challenge that framed these negotiations was
a combination of time—and resource constraints—spe-
cifically for the latter, in terms of number of delegates
present at the negotiations. At the recorded plenary in the
evening on the 26th of April (United Nations 2024), with
three remaining days of negotiations ahead of them, the
delegate from the United States made a suggestion to the
chair and the members of the committee that “…moving
forward…we could convene three of the subgroups in par-
allel should that be needed….” The European Union took
this further and requested not only three sessions in paral-
lel but also stated that “we need to make efforts to make
as much, as fast and as intensive as possible…we also
2 These resources can be found at https:// www. unep. org/ inc- plast
ic- pollu tion/ sessi on-4 under “In-session Documents” and “Written
Statements” and https:// www. unep. org/ inc- plast ic- pollu tion/ webca st
for videos.

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
think that…we will have to work late hours and all nights
if we actually will move our work forward…and include
all-night sessions in our work”. This was echoed by many
other high-income nations, such as Norway, Switzerland,
Australia, New Zealand, and Canada as well. However,
the suggestion was not well received by lower-income
nations, whose delegations in many cases are significantly
smaller and as such do not have the opportunity to rotate
their delegates as often as large delegations with as many
as 70 + registered delegates did. This displeasure was said
out loud as well, by among others the African Group who
stated that, in addition to rejecting the suggestion of three
parallel sessions, and within the context of the sessions
the night before lasting past midnight: “Tired minds do
not effectively negotiate,” and asked the chair to not have
sessions end later than 10pm, referring to the resources
available to small delegations, leading to frustration by
many of the proponents of the idea.
Brazil then gave a strong statement in support of the
African Group, pointing out the need to not ignore the
obvious, stating that it was “…clear to see the dividing
line between developed and developing countries….”
The Brazilian delegate then, with a strong voice but with
clear frustration, brought the attention of the room to the
financing offered to developing nations by the United
Nations, which only allowed for two delegates to be pre-
sent—which was the background for the general UN rule
to not have more than two meetings in parallel except
under extraordinary circumstances. The delegate ended
with a particularly strong statement, emphasizing that she
felt obliged to say that “My delegation resents that work-
ing exhausting hours and dividing yourself in different
groups is the test to show that you are serious…For bigger
delegations, showing this seriousness is easier. It’s like
asking two people to run a certain distance in a certain
time, but one person you give a car, and the other person
has to do it by running.” In closing, she put emphasis on
the fact that for the smaller developing nations, just run-
ning this marathon showed their commitment and that
they should be commended for this, which resonated well
with many delegations present.
The negotiation landscape
[I am ]…confident we can find ways to build shared
understanding and identify areas of convergence…I
am committed to do all I can to work with all of you to
achieve that.—Chair of the Intergovernmental Negoti-
ating Committee, Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso
during the Opening Plenary of INC-4 in Ottawa, Can-
ada April 23rd 2024
On the first day of INC-4, close to 4000 state delegates
and observers were seated and ready for the second to last
negotiation week. There was a buzz in the air of excite-
ment that the negotiations were about to start again, and the
room was filled to capacity, with all observer tables already
occupied by the time our research team made it through the
lines of registration and security—an hour before the start
of the meeting. The chair of the INC, Ambassador Luis
Vayas Valdivieso, declared the INC-4 open and expressed
a clear urgency for the negotiators to advance the draft
text of the instrument sufficiently so that it could be final-
ized and adopted at the fifth session and last session of the
committee, in accordance with the ambition that had been
expressed in the UNEA resolution 5/14 (UNEA 2022). He
presented his suggestion for modalities—or approach—of
the negotiations, with a focus on further dividing the con-
tact groups into more expertise-focused subgroups, that
would then report back to the contact groups themselves
again (see Fig.1 and Table1). This subdivision, however,
led to some confusion among the delegates on the proposed
process onwards, and questions were asked on why the sub-
groups were dividing the text even further, leading to many
minutes of silence where the Secretariat and the chair dis-
cussed among themselves how to answer delegates. This was
in the end solved by the chair asking the delegates to have
this information discussed in the contact groups themselves
instead of in plenary, presumably to not spend more time
discussing matters of organization and instead move into
substantial issues.
On the first day of negotiations, when the delegates
moved away from plenary when the main aim was to have
a first read-through of the draft treaty text and for the
Fig. 1 Contact groups and
modalities for their work
divided into sub-groups

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
facilitators of the respective subgroup to gain the permis-
sion of the member states to streamline the text further,
some time was indeed spent discussing format in some of the
groups. However, the discussion soon moved to substantive
elements, and the chairs asked for mandates to start remov-
ing duplicate text and to the best extent, merge text that was
similar—all with the purpose of reaching an agreement on
a more condensed text by the end of the week. This was
because, with only one more session of planned negotia-
tions, a lot was riding on the delegates during this INC-4
to make significant progress on streamlining the text before
the final session of negotiations in November. The goal of
the chairs of the two contact groups, and the co-facilitators
of the five subgroups, was therefore to move into actual tex-
tual negotiations line by line as soon as the text had been
cleaned up and streamlined for the respective sections. In the
original text, as it had come from INC-3, these sections were
filled with options and brackets from delegations, many of
which were similar or duplicative, and the thought had been
that once streamlined, the textual negotiations would allow
for the text to be more manageable before the last round
of negotiations, which could then be entirely dedicated to
line-by-line negotiations. The landscape of the negotiations
was therefore to have discussions, often in parallel, on the
different topics in the different sub-groups, which could then
turn into more condensed text that could be the basis for the
text to be negotiated in November.
Elements oftheplastics treaty
Still, during these seven days of negotiations in Canada,
there were still substantial amounts of divergent positions
that were soon emphasized, even after the co-chairs had
streamlined the text in each of the subgroups. There also
did not end up being sufficient time for concrete line-by-
line textual negotiations in all subsections. Table2 gives
an overview of the draft texts as they evolved from INC-3
to INC-4, and their differences in a strong legal language
such as the use of the word “shall” as opposed to for exam-
ple “may.” The text differences also demonstrated a diver-
gence of opinions with the delegate’s suggestion of either
“options” (OP1, OP2bis, etc.)3 that had been suggested dur-
ing the negotiations, and the use of square brackets, which
signifies that someone disagrees with a given word, sen-
tence, or, in some cases, entire paragraphs or annexes. For
the purposes of this study, we chose to focus on the parts
of the treaty that were streamlined and, in some cases, also
underwent the first round of textual negotiations. We did
not consider the annexes, where no changes had been made
from the last INC.
When examining the shift in the tables documenting how
the treaty text has been adapted during INC-4, we see that
both the number of pages in total, as well as the number
of options within the draft text, decreased from the initial
69-page content of the ft from INC-3. On the other hand,
the text in brackets (i.e., non-agreed upon text) significantly
increased from the start until the end of INC-4. The brackets
around the text options in parts I and II also demonstrate the
challenges in reaching a consensus during INC-5 to have a
treaty prepared by the end of 2024. A visual representation
of this is found in Fig.2 below.
Figure2 provides insights into the dynamics within the
negotiating room. Prior to INC-3, the volume of text pro-
duced was notably minimal, corresponding with a near-zero
amount of bracketed or non-agreed text. This trend shifted
markedly following INC-3, as detailed in Cowan etal.
(2023). Countries presented numerous options for inclusion
in the treaty during INC3-, but at INC-4, we saw a signifi-
cant reduction in text, which, for this study, we refer to as
a “positive” development towards achieving a treaty agree-
ment. However, the increase in bracketed text indicated that
ongoing challenges and disagreements persist within the text
that is left, suggesting that efforts and compromises will be
necessary in the lead-up to the final negotiating session in
November 2024. For a treaty to be adopted all the text must
be agreed upon and no brackets can remain. The follow-
ing sections examine each of the sections of the treaty draft
so readers can understand where diverging and converging
views may emerge.
Part I: SG1.1 preamble, objective, definitions,
principles, andscope
The following section briefly examines the negotiations from
each part of the treaty text at INC-4 to better understand
the final result of INC-4, followed by an overall conclusion
and discussions on the final planned session of negotiations
at INC-5. The negotiating group that covered Part I of the
draft treaty text, SG1.1, made it through the first two discus-
sion items on the preamble and objective fairly smoothly, in
that they agreed to disagree on the main objective. Coun-
tries agreed to follow the UNEA 5/14 mandate as the main
objective to “end plastic pollution,” but there was a clear
divergence on what ending plastic pollution means. Some
countries, for example, believed it only had to do with waste
management at the end-of-life of plastics, whereas others
considered that it referred to a societal transformation that
would enable the treaty to cover the full life cycle of plas-
tic starting from production. Definitions, similar to those
discussed during INC-2 and 3 were quickly brushed off the
3 OP1 refers to the first new "option" of a draft treaty text provision.
OP2bis and onwards refers to the multiple different options or alter-
natives of text to the draft treaty.

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
Table 2 Versions of the treaty text negotiated during INC-3and INC-
4. Red indicates that there is a “negative” trend and green that there
is a “positive” trend (irrespective of arrows. An increase in “shall’s”
for example may indicate stronger language—whereas an increase in
“options” indicates divergence of opinions)
For the purposes of this table, an “option” is a place in the draft text with multiple options, not the number of options in total. Each “option”
could actually contain two or more options, and/or include options under options. For example, article A may have option 1 and option 2. That
is counted as one “option” because it is one place with options. If there are two options under option 2, that is one more place with option
(Mendenhall etal. 2023)
The full draft text to start negotiations with at INC-5 was uploaded to the INC-5 website on July 1st, 2024 (UNEP/PP/INC.5/4). It does not
include all the details as the individual ‘Parts’ of the negotiated text in Contact Groups during INC-4. “The compilation contained in the annex
to the present note was prepared by the secretariat pursuant to the mandate described above. In accordance with this mandate, minimal adjust-
ments have been made to the text with a view to standardizing the format of the document for consistency of presentation and ease of reading,
without modifying the substance of the texts as contained in the respective outcome documents of the subgroups.”

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
table as there was a wide convergence this should come later
in the negotiating process, either during the intersessional
period or INC-5. This was a tricky subject though, as simi-
lar to the issues with objectives, it is hard to negotiate for
something when you are not speaking the same language and
comparing apples to oranges.
As such, although SG1.1 initially was considered to
be negotiating one of the “easier” parts of the draft treaty
text, the discussions in Part I revealed a multitude of
diverging views, leading to almost 200 interventions dur-
ing the week of negotiations, and the introduction of new
alternative options for both the objective and preamble in
the new version of the treaty text. Figure3 demonstrates
the drastic changes in forming this part of the treaty text
since before INC-3 and during INC-1. As is apparent in
the increase of bracketed text, the principles section of
Part 1 elicited a divided view as well, with some countries
advocating for their retention in the treaty, while others
argued for their exclusion, citing redundancy with men-
tions in other parts of the draft text. However, amid these
challenges, the co-chairs of SG1.1 asked the room for a
mandate to streamline the text in a transparent way and
with track changes, and with the delegates allowed to send
in further comments to also be included in a streamlined
text. There was a feeling, and worried statements made
that many of the delegates were uncertain of the process
Fig. 2 Combined visual repre-
sentation of the word count and
bracket count throughout three
draft treaty text iterations
Fig. 3 Part 1 of the GPT draft
text throughout INC3–4: word
count and brackets

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
and reluctant to give a carte blanche without assurances
that their input would not be ignored in a streamlining
process. Many of the delegates asked for clarification,
often of the same things, showing their uncertainty of
the process itself.
For example, one of the negotiators, in asking for
clarification, emphasized that they were “…Not oppos-
ing, [but] trying to understand what the decision [to give
the co-chairs the mandate to streamline text] refers to.
Would the streamlined version be of the things we have
gone through? What would be the steps? This would be
important to understand before going forward.” Another
asked “will we have the same approach to streamlining
with track changes? I wish also to see this reflected in
the streamlined text.”, referring to the text they wanted
to make sure did not disappear in a process of streamlin-
ing. These were just two of many examples of delegates
asking the co-chairs to assure them that they would not
lose their text suggestions in a streamlining process. In
the end, after five days of negotiations, and having met
five times in total, the co-chairs of SG1.1 reported to the
CG1 chairs that they had been able to complete a full
readthrough of all elements of this part, and that they
had been able to start technical negotiations based on
the validated streamlined text, completing a first round
of textual negotiations, though excluding definitions as
the group had considered it premature. As can be seen in
Fig.3, though the streamlining of the text had its merits
in the reduction of text, the number of brackets increased,
showing that textual negotiations will be challenging with
this much divergence in positions coming into INC-5.
Part II: SG1.2 options forinclusion intotheplastic
treaty
Part II of the draft treaty text, also known as the “Core
Obligations,” is considered by some the most difficult and
divided section to negotiate. This is visible in Fig.4; the
graphs show that nearly every 8th word in the version of the
treaty text moving into INC-5 is bracketed. This is due to the
fact it currently includes potential provisions to limit or ban
the production of primary plastic polymers (PPPs), among
others. The polarization on this topic was prevalent through-
out INC-4 when negotiations were delayed nearly two hours
at one point due to several countries—most notably those
from oil-producing nations—disagreeing to hold any such
negotiations on this provision. After back-and-forth discus-
sions, the chairs of SG1.2 decided to allow negotiations to
proceed, this also offered those countries who did not agree
to include this text in the draft in brackets, combined with a
“zero option” of no text at all included. With PPPs, chemi-
cals of concern, and unavoidable and problematic plastic
polymers at near non-negotiable standoffs, there is concern
these provisions, which were championed by the high ambi-
tion coalition (HAC) and NGOs alike, may not make it into
the official treaty text.
On the other hand, a provision that did not yet have its
place in the text during INC-3, but was introduced in INC-
4, was known as the fishing gear provision. This provision
gained much traction at INC-4 and had numerous individual
negotiating sessions on how to tackle fishing gear waste spe-
cifically. At first, lumped between SG1.2 and 1.3 because it
fell under both emissions and waste management, the fish-
ing gear provision was eventually moved to SG1.3 alone
to be negotiated. There was broad support for having an
Fig. 4 Part 2 of the GPT draft
text throughout INC3–4: word
count and brackets

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
overarching obligation outside of the main 13 to specifically
prevent abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG),
and there was even a call to action for including specific
measures to enhance end-of-life management, tracking,
and reporting of gear, as well as educational and training
sessions to ensure that gear is properly disposed of. Devel-
oping countries, however, emphasized their specific needs
when this was brought up, stressing that developed countries
needed to understand that there also had to be mechanisms
in place for assessing the financial means of each nation, to
ensure provisions would not hinder the livelihood of the fish-
ing and aquaculture industries through these proposed meas-
ures, and that this should be reflected in national action plans
as well. In the end, the negotiators were unable to complete
a full round of negotiations, and as Fig.4 visualizes, here
too the streamlining led to fewer words—but more brackets,
demonstrating strongly divergent opinions.
Part III: financing andcapacity building
Financing and capacity building were topics that fell under
SG2.1 during INC-4. Efforts to streamline the negotiation
process commenced on night one of the negotiations for the
groups addressing Parts III–VI (CG2). The co-chairs were
assigned the task of eliminating redundancies and generat-
ing a revised working document. A crucial element of the
CG2 negotiations focused on Part III of the draft treaty, par-
ticularly the financial mechanisms. The discussions involved
restructuring this section and deliberating on the inclusion
of specific references to the unique circumstances of small
island developing states (SIDS), as well as other categories
such as downstream states, least developed countries, and
land-locked developing states. Consensus was not reached
on which specific references to include in the draft text,
as there was divergence on whether to include a variety
of references such as those mentioned above or having a
simpler text separating only into groups of e.g., developed
and developing countries. Consequently, several brackets
were introduced to the text (Fig.5). Financial mechanisms
were, however, agreed upon as essential to be established
for developing countries in particular to be able to fulfil the
obligations of the treaty. Delegates also argued that addition-
ally, for the financial mechanisms to work as intended, they
would need to be accompanied by mechanisms for capac-
ity building, technical assistance, and technology transfer,
indicating the complexity of the topics up for negotiation.
Part IV: institutional matters andPart V: bodies
oftheinstrument
Institutional matters were part of SG2.2 and addressed
issues related to progress reporting, periodic assessments
and monitoring, international cooperation, and information
exchange (Fig.6). Discussions also focused on the spe-
cial circumstances of various groups of states, particularly
regarding their capacity, revealing distinct preferences for
the available options. While the debates were occasionally
tense and emotional, moments of laughter provided observ-
ers with optimism for eventual consensus, contingent on
achieving common ground in key areas. Many delegates
proposed incorporating text from other recent agreements,
such as the BBNJ and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodi-
versity Framework, which had successfully navigated similar
challenges.
Meanwhile, Part V of the draft treaty text included
overarching provisions mainly related to deciding how
Fig. 5 Part 3 of the GPT draft
text throughout INC3–4: word
count and brackets

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
to implement, govern, and strengthen the treaty once it is
signed and ratified. The discussions of Part V during INC-4
differed from the discussions of the other parts as the draft
of Part V was provided as a basis for negotiation with rela-
tively little need for streamlining from CG3 during INC-3,
according to statements made in SG2.2. The discussions
about part V involved whether and which explicit rules for
the governing body to be included in the text, the frequency
and mandate of COPs, and how to provide a functional
treaty that will uphold cooperation—preferably including
lessons learned from other agreements (e.g., the BBNJ and
the Minamata convention). Discussions also involved the
subsidiary bodies and their importance for the implementa-
tion of the treaty, however, often referred to as premature to
discuss at this stage and in need of revision after other parts
of the treaty have fallen more into place.
Can we recycle ourselves outofplastic
pollution ifprimary plastic polymers are
notpart ofthetreaty?
We have an enormous task ahead of us, we have
worked very hard this week to make sure that all our
positions are clearly established and included in the
draft […] however the EU and its member states are
still deeply concerned about the days left we have for
negotiations at our disposal will not suffice to bring
our work across the finish line in November.—Hugo
Maria Schally, Adviser for international environmental
negotiations, Directorate General for the Environment
during the closing Plenary of INC-4 in Ottawa, Canada
April 30th, 2024
The week of negotiations in April of 2024 ended with
late-night diplomacy and a final agreement on how to make
progress towards the fifth and expected final negotiations
later that year. Still, states with divergent opinions had not
been able to extract themselves from their locked positions
during this week—most notably around the topics of pri-
mary plastic polymers (PPP), which in the end led to this
topic not being included in the agreed intersessional work
to take place before the final negotiation session in Busan,
Republic of Korea, scheduled for November 25th–December
1st, 2024. The decision to not include PPP in this work pro-
voked palpable disappointment and interventions from some
parties, including the delegate from Rwanda, who in reply
to this proposal from the chair, expressed his “profound dis-
appointment that the proposal for intersessional work has
decided to ignore the elephant in the room.”
With only one planned negotiating session left, the question
looms as to whether it will be in any case possible to recycle our-
selves out of the plastic problem and truly end plastic pollution
without a full life cycle approach. The High Ambition Coali-
tion itself claims that the future treaty should include provisions
covering up and mid-stream plastic usage. However, in the late
night—or early morning—sessions of the last plenary, includ-
ing primary plastic polymers in any upcoming version of the
treaty is perceived as out of reach. Although this provision may
not have a strong role in the future treaty, delegates did agree
on some topics along the way to the “Bridge to Busan.” It was
eventually agreed in the early hours of April 30th to convene
intersessional work before INC-5. This intersessional work was
to include measures to establish and maximize finances after the
Fig. 6 Part 4 of the GPT draft
text throughout INC3–4: word
count and brackets

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
treaty has been adopted, allowing lower-income nations to fully
participate in the implementation of the treaty and gain access to
new financial flows. The second agreed-upon task to take place
between INC-4 and 5 was the establishment of criteria and non-
criteria-based approaches regarding design and recyclability and
chemicals within plastic products.
The question of additional negotiations between INC-4 and
INC-5 was brought to the table by the EU. Similar to the rea-
sons why lower-income nations could not negotiate in more
than two parallel sessions or negotiate late into the evenings
at INC-4, the argument against such sessions was that there
was not nearly enough time or capacity for all member states
to be heard if negotiations continued in between sessions. This
is why the EU’s haunting sentiment of not being able to fulfil
the mandate of ending negotiations at INC-5 holds weight. In
the end, it truly is a standoff at a four-way stop at INC-4, with
all attention pointed towards Busan and INC-5 for any hope of
achieving a strong legally binding agreement. By following the
negotiations and hearing formal and informal talks during the
week of INC-4, some negotiators argued during contact groups
that the current plastic treaty negotiations could fall short if
voluntary national targets became the primary mechanism.
While such an outcome might mark a step towards global
consensus, it could also delay more robust action throughout
the full life cycle of plastics. At INC-5, countries will need to
agree on what it means to “end plastic pollution” though—this
will be crucial to shaping the final agreement and determining
its effectiveness.
Author contribution Dr. Rachel Tiller originated the concept and
design of the work; contributed to the data acquisition, analysis, or
interpretation of data, drafted the work and revised it, and approved
the version to be submitted. Emily Cowan contributed to the concept
and design, data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data, draft-
ing significant portions of the work and revisions of it, and approved
the version to be submitted. Ina Helene Ahlquist and Theodore Tiller
contributed to the data acquisition.
Funding Open access funding provided by SINTEF. This article has
received funding from the Norwegian Research Council awards nr
318730 and 315402, as well as the Horizon Europe Framework Pro-
gramme, award nos. 101060213 and 101094065.
Data availability Data is not available to share upon request until the
end of the INCs, scheduled for the end of 2024, upon which they will
be published.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing interests.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-
bution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adapta-
tion, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes
were made. The images or other third party material in this article are
included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in
the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will
need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a
copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
References
Aanesen M, Ahi JC, Abate TG, Khan FR, de Vries FP, Kite-Powell
H, Beaumont NJ (2024) Insights from international environ-
mental legislation and protocols for the global plastic treaty.
Sci Rep 14:2750. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1038/ s41598- 024- 53099-9
Ambrose K (2023) Assessing the need for harmonized marine debris
monitoring and equity to support participation in the global
plastics treaty negotiations by Caribbean SIDS. World Maritime
University Ph.D. Dissertations.
Bergmann M, Almroth BC, Brander SM, Dey T, Green DS, Gun-
dogdu S, Krieger A, Wagner M, Walker TR (2022) A global
plastic treaty must cap production. Science 376:469–470
Brandon A, Vanapalli KR, Martin OV, Dijkstra H, la Torre GED,
Hartmann NB, Meier MAR, Pathak G, Busch P-O, Ma D, Iaco-
vidou E, Birkbeck CD, Pacini H (2023) Charting success for the
plastics treaty. One Earth 6:575–581. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1016/j.
oneear. 2023. 05. 022
Cowan E (2024) Event Ethnography to study the global negotiations
on the treaty to end plastic pollution: dataset from the first ses-
sion of negotiations (INC-1). J Environ Stud Sci. https:// doi. org/
10. 1007/ s13412- 024- 00914-4
Cowan E, Holmberg K, Nøklebye E, Rognerud I, Tiller R (2024) It
takes two to tango: the second session of negotiations (INC-2)
for a global treaty to end plastic pollution. J Environ Stud Sci.
https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s13412- 024- 00906-4
Cowan E, Tiller R, Maes T (2024b) The rule of three: the third ses-
sion of negotiations on the global treaty to end plastic pollution
(In press). JESS.
Dauvergne P (2023) The necessity of justice for a fair, legitimate,
and effective treaty on plastic pollution. Mar Policy 155:105785.
https:// doi. org/ 10. 1016/j. marpol. 2023. 105785
Dreyer E, Hansen T, Holmberg K, Olsen T, Stripple J (2024)
Towards a global plastics treaty: tracing the UN negotiations.
Lund University.
English C (2023) Pushing out plastic: lessons for the UNEA to con-
sider in drafting its newest multilateral environmental agree-
ment. Vand J Transnat’l l 56:1131
Farrelly T, Gammage T, Carney Almroth B, Thompson R (2024)
Global plastics treaty needs trusted science. Science 384:281–
281. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1126/ scien ce. adp42 64
Maes T, Wienrich N, Weiand L, Cowan E (2023) A little less con-
versation: how existing governance can strengthen the future
global plastics treaty. Camb Prisms Plast 1:e22. https:// doi. org/
10. 1017/ plc. 2023. 22
Mendenhall E (2023) Building a regime complex for marine plastic
pollution. Camb Prisms Plast 1:e12. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1017/
plc. 2023. 12
Mendenhall E, Tiller R, Nyman E (2023) The ship has reached the
shore: the final session of the ‘Biodiversity Beyond National
Jurisdiction’ negotiations. Mar Policy 155:105686. https:// doi.
org/ 10. 1016/j. marpol. 2023. 105686
O’Hare P, Nøklebye E (2024) The human face of the UN plastics
treaty? The role of waste pickers in intergovernmental negotia-
tions to end plastic pollution and ensure a just transition. Camb
Prisms Plast 1–24. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1017/ plc. 2024. 12

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
Pacheco-Vega R (2020) Using ethnography in comparative pol-
icy analysis: premises, promises and perils, in: Handbook of
Research Methods and Applications in Comparative Policy
Analysis. Edward Elgar Publishing, 312–332.
Sousa de FDB (2024) Will the global plastics treaty break the plastic
wave? The beginning of a long discussion road. Camb Prisms
Plast 1–39. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1017/ plc. 2024. 14
Syberg K, Oturai NG, Hansen SF, Collins TJ, Gündoğdu S, Carney
Almroth B, Palm E, Castillo Castillo A, Baztan J, de Miranda
Grilli N, Ramos T, Farrelly T, Muncke J (2024) Link circular
economy to waste hierarchy in treaty. Science 384:280–281.
https:// doi. org/ 10. 1126/ scien ce. adp43 64
Tiller R, Booth AM, Cowan E (2022) Risk perception and risk realities
in forming legally binding agreements: the governance of plastics.
Environ Sci Policy 134:67–74
Tiller R, Cowan E (2024) Recap of Day 3 INC-4: the one where we
could see, but not hear, civil society. URL https:// www. linke din.
com/ pulse/ recap- day-3- inc-4- one- where- we- c ould- see- hear- civil-
socie ty- tiller- ut7wf/? track ingId= 3w0kq 7FtR8 uomDr 6f96r Lg%
3D% 3D (accessed 4.26.24).
UNEA (2022) UNEA 5.14 - resolution adopted by the United Nations
Environment Assembly on 2 March 2022 [WWW Document]. UN
Environment Assembly 5 (UNEA 5.2) Resolutions. URL https://
wedocs. unep. org/ bitst ream/ handle/ 20. 500. 11822/ 39764/ END%
20PLA STIC% 20POL LUTION% 20-% 20TOW ARDS% 20AN%
20INT ERNAT IONAL% 20LEG ALLY% 20BIN DING% 20INS
TRUME NT% 20-% 20Eng lish. pdf? seque nce= 1& isAll owed=y
(accessed 5.3.24).
UNEP (2023) Zero draft text of the international legally binding instru-
ment on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.
UNEP (2024a) UNEP/PP/INC.4/3: revised draft text of the interna-
tional legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including
in the marine environment [WWW Document]. Fourth Session
(INC-4): Official documents. URL https:// www. unep. or g/ inc- plas t
ic- pollu tion/ sessi on-4/ docum ents# Worki ngDoc uments (accessed
5.3.24).
UNEP (2024b) In-session documents platform: statements on behalf
of groups of observers and observers [WWW Document]. Fourth
Session (INC-4): Written statements. URL https:// www. unep. org/
inc- plast ic- pollu tion/ sessi on-4/ state ments# Obser vers (accessed
5.3.24).
United Nations (2024) INC-4 on plastic pollution: plenary (part 3)
[WWW Document]. UN Web TV. URL http:// webtv. un. org/ en/
asset/ k1b/ k1bxf x78ot (accessed 5.8.24).
Valdivieso LV (2024) UNEP/PP/INC.4/4 advance: scenario note for the
fourth session of the intergovernmental negotiating committee to
develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pol-
lution, including in the marine environment [WWW Document].
Fourth Session (INC-4): Official documents. URL https:// wedocs.
unep. org/ bitst ream/ handle/ 20. 500. 11822/ 45302/ Scena rioNo teE.
pdf (accessed 5.3.24).
Walker TR (2022) Calling for a decision to launch negotiations on
a new global agreement on plastic pollution at UNEA5. 2. Mar
Pollut Bull 176:113447–113447