Twelve months after formal negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty broke down in Geneva, the new Chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee has released an Aid to Negotiations document intended to revive the stalled process.

Campaigners say, however, that it does not represent progress, rather that it represents retreat.

The document, released by Chair Julio Cordono following months of informal and closed-door talks, is a non-negotiated reference text designed to support the next stages of the process – further closed meetings in Bangkok from 27 to 30 September 2026, and the resumption of formal negotiations at INC-5.4 in March 2027.

Civil society organisations have not been granted access to the recent talks that preceded the document’s release. In his accompanying note, Cordono confirmed he had not included bridging proposals put forward by countries in meetings attended by the heads of delegations. It has been left unclear how those ideas will be handled going forward.

For the Environmental Investigation Agency, which has followed the negotiations throughout their four-year history, the document is not a step forward from Geneva – it is a repackaging of the same inadequate ambition that caused it to collapse.

“The Chair has described this as a ‘no surprises’ document,” said EIA Ocean Campaign Leader Christina Dixon. “In that sense, it delivers exactly what many feared – a retreat from the level of ambition needed to end plastic pollution. One year after countries rejected a weak outcome in Geneva, they are now being presented with much the same level of ambition, repackaged as progress.

“Key measures that could tackle the problem at its source remain diluted, deferred or dropped altogether and new proposals remain totally absent. Ultimately, the world needs a treaty that bends the curve on plastic production and pollution, not one that bends to the lowest common denominator.”

EIA Legal and Policy Specialist Amy Youngman said the document not only failed to move beyond Geneva but that it weakened what Geneva had already rejected.

“High- and low-ambition countries agreed on one thing in Geneva – this text could not carry the process forward. The new Chair promised textual clarity but instead weakened a rejected draft, played with the brackets and presented what remains as a document to support negotiations.

“You cannot gut a treaty of its obligations and pretend you have a successful agreement. If the process continues down this path, the new Chair risks being remembered in the history books – not for building consensus, but for locking the world into the plastic pollution crisis these negotiations were created to prevent.”

The central dispute that has defined the negotiations remains unresolved: whether the treaty will address plastic at the point of production, or only at the point of disposal.

A treaty focused on waste management alone will not reduce the volume of plastic being made – and without reducing production, the pollution crisis continues.

The Bangkok meetings in September will be the next test of whether the process can find a way through that deadlock. The EIA’s position is clear: the document released this week does not provide the foundation for a treaty capable of ending plastic pollution.

EIA Ocean Campaigner Hannah Hughes, said: “This Aid to Negotiations can feel like revisiting the same draft with a fresh set of brackets. Issues that seemed to be moving towards resolution have been reopened, while important measures have become less clear and, in some cases, less ambitious.

“After four years of talks, governments know that waste management alone will not end plastic pollution. To tackle the crisis at its source, the treaty must include measures to reduce plastic production.”

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