EVOLUTION OF GLOBAL PLASTIC TREATY

• United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) is the world’s highest-level decision-making body on environmental topics. Decisions and resolutions taken by the member states at the assembly also define the work of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
• INC-2 is the international community’s chance to set the stage for negotiations on the substance of a global deal to end plastic pollution to edge closer to protecting ecosystems, species and humanity from the grave impacts of the linear plastics economy
• UNEA was formed in 2012 to create an effective international environmental governance system. The INC is the body of member states of the UN that will be negotiating the treaty, since the treaty negotiation process is led by the member states.
• Every two years, 193 of its member states, businesses and civil societies come together to set priorities for global environmental policies, develop international environmental law, and agree on policies to address the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges.
• In 2017 at UNEA-3, countries agreed to open an ad-hoc open-ended expert group on marine litter and microplastics  to study the global landscape of efforts to address plastic pollution

• Apart from the member states, there are nine major groups and stakeholders: Non-profits, women, workers and trade unions, the scientific community, farmers, indigenous communities, children and youth, local authorities, businesses and industry
• The major groups and stakeholders get to make joint interventions in the negotiations to put forward their concerns and suggestions
• They get two minutes to make their interventions. These organisations are the ones that feature in the list of accredited organisations of the UNEP
• Observer status is a privilege granted to non-members to allow them to participate in the organisation’s activities
• Accredited organisations can also be observers in such meetings. Observers are not allowed to make interventions during the process of the negotiations
• However, the observers are seen as agencies that can influence the priorities and decisions taken by certain member states

• The idea of a global plastic treaty was set in motion after India’s call for a global ban on single-use plastic at the UNEA 4 in 2019.
• In UNEA 5.2- a historic resolution was adopted to “End Plastic Pollution”, keeping in mind the entire life cycle of plastic, from the extraction of raw materials to the disposal of plastic waste