The next informal meeting of heads of delegation on a global plastics treaty will take place in Bangkok, Thailand, from 27 to 30 September. In preparation for the meeting, INC Chair Julio Cordano published the Aid to negotiations (AtN) document at the beginning of August, presenting it as “my best effort to present a balanced approach to the various elements of our work, reflecting the level of progress we have achieved”.
According to the scientific community and other civil society observers, however, the text does not adequately reflect the mandate of UNEA Resolution 5/14, under which the negotiations are being conducted - namely, to end plastic pollution while taking into account the entire life cycle of plastics - and ignores the positions expressed by a majority of states during previous negotiating sessions.
An analysis by the Scientists' Coalition for Effective Plastics Treaty, which Renewable Matter was able to review before it was made public [the publication followed on 2 September, editor’s note], shows that the text proposed by Cordano cannot fulfil the mandate of UNEA Resolution 5/14 because it omits fundamental provisions relating to the upstream phases of the plastics life cycle and because the legal wording of its key provisions is too weak.
The text also omits the positions expressed by a majority of countries during the formal negotiations. The Aid to Negotiations “does not reflect the position of the more than 50 countries who signed or supported the Bridge to Busan Declaration on Primary Plastic Polymers; the 97 countries who signed the Nice Wake-Up Call for an Ambitious Plastics Treaty; the 70 countries that signed High Ambition Coalition Member States Ministerial Joint Statement for INC-5; nor the 95 countries that supported the Switzerland and Mexico joint Conference Room Paper (CRP) on chemicals”, Trisia Farrelly, professor and honorary member at Massey University and senior scientist at the Cawthron Institute in New Zealand, tells Renewable Matter. “All these countries understand that a treaty that meets the mandate to end global plastic pollution requires a full lifecycle approach starting at supply. They also understand that a treaty with weak provisions at the product design phase and that focuses on waste management will never end global plastic pollution.”
A weaker text than the one already rejected a year ago
Amy Youngman, a legal and policy expert at the Environmental Investigation Agency, tells Renewable Matter that the AtN is essentially a modified version of the last-minute proposal put forward by the previous INC Chair, Luis Vayas-Valdivieso, at the end of INC-5.2 in Geneva in August 2025: “Countries rejected that proposal because it was not a coherent basis for negotiation: it did not reflect what the majority of States were calling for to fulfil the mandate, nor did it accurately capture the negotiations that had actually taken place at INC-5.2”.
Youngman explains that the document released by Cordano takes an already weak text and weakens it further, removing or diminishing important elements and legal obligations without meaningfully incorporating many of the proposals that had attracted broad support during the negotiations. “The biggest danger now is that this becomes the starting point simply because it is the document on the table. It should not. The Chair has described it as a living document, which means countries still have both the opportunity and the responsibility to substantially reshape it”.
“The AtN does not adequately reflect the science”
According to the Scientists' Coalition's analysis, the AtN focuses on downstream waste-management measures. “From a scientific point of view, ending global plastic pollution will require binding obligations for upstream, hazard-based, precautionary and preventative provisions that incentivise and assure transparency, essentiality, safety and sustainability across the full lifecycle and that are guided by the waste hierarchy”, Trisia Farrelly adds.
The AtN also contains no legal transparency obligations concerning the most problematic and avoidable chemicals and plastic products, a gap with implications for human and environmental health. “Hazard and safety information should never be commercially confidential”, Farrelly continues. “The UN Special Rapporteur on toxics has said this plainly: information concerning public health and safety regarding hazardous substances cannot be legitimately claimed as confidential. Supply chain actors require access to relevant and accurate information about the plastic chemicals, materials, products and waste they manufacture, use and consume. Without access to relevant and accurate information, members cannot meet their obligations to the future instrument. Scientists and supply chain actors, including manufacturers, retailers, waste managers, consumers and formal and informal waste workers need to know that the plastics they are assessing, using and handling are safe for intended and unintended uses. Data transparency is also needed to enable supply chain actors to protect the quality of their products, equipment, brand reputation, workers and environment.”
Although the text stresses “the importance of science-based decision-making process”, it was not developed in consultation with scientists, Farrelly adds. “There are no references to evidence-based science in the AtN as it is the INC Chair’s attempt to bring together the matters discussed and negotiated at previous INC Sessions and HODs meetings. The AtN does not adequately reflect the science.”
Farrelly also stresses the importance of introducing safeguards, currently absent from the text, to ensure that the petrochemical, plastics and waste-management industries do not exert undue influence over implementation of the future instrument. “Citizens worldwide have the right to know who is informing decision makers, and to be reassured that regulators are not benefiting financially or otherwise from industries that are invested in plastic production. We welcome the reintroduction of the following text or similar to safeguard transparency and avoid conflicts of interest in the treaty implementation: “The committee and its members shall be independent, transparent and free from conflicts of interest”.
An imbalance between trade interests and environmental protection
Another problem with the text presented by Cordano is the removal of the trade provisions. “Trade is not peripheral to plastic pollution; it is woven through the entire plastics lifecycle”, Amy Youngman explains. “Plastic is produced in relatively few countries, products move through global supply chains, and consumption, waste and pollution occur across borders. Removing trade provisions risks treating trade as somehow separate from the problem when, in reality, it is one of the mechanisms through which plastic pollution is created, moved and displaced around the world. It is particularly concerning that the Aid retains language protecting international trade from environmental measures while removing substantive provisions on material monitoring and transparency.”
The result “is an obvious imbalance”, Youngman adds. “Trade interests are being given explicit protection while the treaty is losing the tools that would ensure trade supports, rather than undermines, its environmental objectives. The Basel Convention already regulates aspects of plastic waste trade, yet we continue to see serious environmental and health impacts associated with that trade, particularly where hazardous materials are involved, or information about waste composition is inadequate. The plastics treaty should complement and strengthen those controls. Not make it harder for countries to use legitimate trade measures to prevent plastic pollution.”
The risk of a step backwards in international law
On 24 August, the Washington Post revealed a leaked memo from US diplomats showing that the United States is seeking to weaken global limits on plastic pollution. Circulated this summer to governments involved in the negotiations, the document calls for a “pragmatic” treaty focused on waste management and private investment, with a clause allowing countries to adopt whatever measures they deem necessary for national security.
"The US has always had considerable pull in international negotiations, and in the past, the plastics treaty was no exception. That influence comes not only from its political weight, but also from its enormous trade leverage and its historic role as a major source of funding”, Youngman explains. “At INC-5.2 and in all subsequent meetings, rather than publicly positioning itself as a bridge between differing positions, the US appeared increasingly to be steering the negotiations towards a less ambitious outcome. That is a dangerous use of leverage. […] You cannot negotiate a treaty to solve a global problem while writing yourself an escape hatch for the moment the solution becomes politically inconvenient. That is not multilateralism; it is using international law when it suits you and reserving the right to ignore it when it does not.”
But the problem is not limited to the behaviour of individual states: the text Cordano proposed as the basis for discussion itself risks rolling back existing protections. As Andres del Castillo, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, tells Renewable Matter, “The Aid to Negotiations is riddled with optional provisions rather than legally binding ones - this means that countries can do whatever they want or not. And in its current form, it would be a step back from existing international law on plastic. This is why organisations like CIEL have been asking Member States to recall the positions that they put forward at INC-5.2 in Geneva. Many of these positions were ambitious and included provisions to effectively address the crisis. We want them to reject the text in its current form and reintroduce ambition. Otherwise, they risk delivering a treaty that locks in plastic’s harms and fails future generations”.
As with the previous article, Renewable Matter also requested an interview with INC Chair Julio Cordano for this article but received no response.
Cover: Julio Cordano photographed by Kiara Worth, UNFCCC via Flickr