towards a global plastics treaty

An estimated 150 million tonnes of plastics have accumulated in the world's oceans and the problem increases, as waste management and recycling systems are unable to cope with the rising plastic production. Marine plastic pollution has consequences on the global ecosystem, coastal communities, industries including tourism, shipping and fishing and its impacts on food security and human health remain unknown. Negative effects span borders of national jurisdiction and a solution to the problem requires international cooperation. Policies to prevent plastic pollution have been implemented on local, national, regional and international levels. However, efforts to adequately address the problem have failed so far. When faced with such transboundary problems that threaten global public goods in the past, states have formed international regimes through negotiating legally binding treaties to effectively cope with the issue. This thesis examines factors for success and failure of international regimes for the protection of global public goods and investigates two cases of one successful and one unsuccessful international regime to cope with transboundary pollution problems. Results of the analysis of the successful Montreal Protocol show that an advantageous cost-benefit analysis, active leadership of actors pushing for an agreement, support by non-state actors on the domestic level, as well as perceived urgency for action were success factors. The treaty design constituted a necessary condition for success by using the following treaty elements: a) common but differentiated responsibilities, b) trade restrictions, c) financial mechanism, and d) adjustments and amendments. Findings from the Kyoto Protocol case study indicate reasons for failure, namely the disadvantageous cost-benefit analysis, perceived unfairness due to the exemption of developing countries from costs, domestic compliance incapacity, as well as inadequate targets to address the problem. The treaty design was a necessary condition for failure of the regime by including: a) one-sided responsibility, b) an inadequate scope to deal with the problem, as well as mechanisms that allowed for loopholes and complicated monitoring, c) rigidity incentivising short-term policies and preventing innovation, as well as d) lack of compliance and enforcement mechanisms. This thesis demonstrates that treaty design is significant for setting incentives for participation and compliance, as well as for deterring non-compliance. The treaty design of a successful international agreement to eliminate marine plastic pollution would require the use of: a) the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, b) an adequate scope to address the problem by including land- and sea-based sources, as well as chemical additives and all stages of the life-cycle of plastics, c) issue-linkage to international plastics trade, d) a financial mechanism to support developing countries, e) flexibility to adapt to changes, f) effective reporting, monitoring and review procedures, and g) enforcement through incentivising compliance and deterring non-compliance. This research demonstrates that treaty design is a key determinant for success of international regimes. This thesis contributes to research by reviewing academic literature on the emergence and maintenance of international regimes, mapping the problem of marine plastic pollution and identifying treaty elements that will contribute to success of a legally binding mechanism on the global scale to adequately address marine plastic pollution. Implications go beyond the topic of marine plastic pollution and global environmental problems, and can also be useful for academics, policymakers, and civil society actors in other areas of international law and global governance

Governing a Divided Ocean: The Transformative Power of Ecological Connectivity in the BBNJ negotiations

Science plays an important role in the emergence, development, and implementation of new environmental regimes. However, there are opposing views regarding the type of knowledge that is considered policy-relevant to address global environmental problems. In intergovernmental negotiations, these tensions are visible in debates about the inclusion of scientific concepts in a negotiated text. This article analyses the case of "ecological connectivity" in the negotiations for an international legally-binding instrument (ILBI) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). As a key scientific concept portraying the ocean as one, the term ecological connectivity challenges the status quo and has far-reaching implications for future ocean governance. Our study draws on ethnographic data collected during the BBNJ negotiations and analyses the actors and their different rationales for including the ecological connectivity concept in the treaty text. Our results demonstrate two things. First, state and non-state actors use the ecological connectivity concept to support their interests in the new ILBI, based on different types of rationales: ecologic, socio-economic, juridic, and epistemic. Second, our analysis demonstrates that several actors recognise the limitations of the existing legal order underpinning ocean governance in areas beyond national jurisdiction and are keen to embrace a new legal framework regarding the idea of an interconnected ocean. We conclude that while the ecological connectivity concept runs the risk of losing its meaning in an array of competing political interests, it does have the potential to achieve transformative change in global ocean governance and fundamentally alter the way humans use and protect BBNJ

Global environmental agreement-making: upping the methodological and ethical stakes of studying negotiations

This perspective identifies how recent advances contribute to re-evaluating and re-constructing global environmental negotiations as a research object by calling into question who constitutes an actor and what constitutes a site of agreement formation. Building on this scholarship, we offer the term agreement-making to facilitate further methodological and ethical reflection. The term agreement-making broadens the conceptualisation of the actors, sites and processes constitutive of global environmental agreements and brings to the fore how these are shaped by, reflect and have the potential to re-make or transform the intertwined global order of social, political and economic relations. Agreement-making situates research within these processes, and we suggest that enhancing the methodological diversity and practical utility is a potential avenue for challenging the reproduction of academic dominance. We highlight how COVID-19 requires further adapting research practices and offers an opportunity to question whether we need to be physically present to provide critical insight, analysis and support