A Bad Negotiating Strategy Could Undermine Global Plastics Treaty

Negotiations will continue next month for a global treaty on plastics. While it is unclear what provisions the treaty will carry—and, more importantly, what enforcement mechanisms it may contain—the debate thus far has been characterized by tension between groups that want the treaty to limit plastic consumption and groups that want to focus more on plastic waste management. Last August, Reuters dropped a bit of a bombshell when it reported that the United States would align itself with the “high ambition” countries involved in the negotiation, which could tip the scales in favor of limitations on plastic consumption. But while news about the U.S. negotiating strategy is scarce, there are two major issues jeopardizing the likely success of any resultant agreement.

The first is timing. The negotiations will come shortly after the U.S. election, during the so-called “lame duck” period where the incumbent administration can act without fear of political reprisal. Foreign policy is primarily conducted within the executive branch, with treaty ratification requiring approval from the Senate (ratification allows treaties to carry the force of domestic law). At the time of writing, we do not yet know who will be president next term, but what we do know is that the administration negotiating the treaty will not be the one charged with its implementation. While second-term or late-term treaties are a common strategy for negotiation success, as it avoids many electoral constraints, we know that subsequent administrations can and do jettison foreign policy deals they don’t agree with, as former President Donald J. Trump did in 2017 with the Paris Agreement.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins, then negotiations this November could at least carry a little more weight, given her role in the current administration. But if Trump wins, it’s safe to say that the current negotiation team can’t speak for what a future Trump administration would do to comply with a global plastics treaty. In an ideal world, domestic politics end “at the water’s edge,” and foreign policy is conducted on a bipartisan basis. But as more foreign policy focuses on how business ought to be conducted domestically, partisanship has creeped in with the hope that current administrations can constrain future ones. This isn’t a new strategy (we saw it with collapsing communist states eager to negotiate favorable deals while they still had leverage), but it is less likely to yield a politically durable agreement if the administration inheriting the deal does not approve.

The second major issue is that the fight between capping plastic consumption versus targeting plastic pollution is not one in which both policy proposals are equally meritorious. As R Street has pointed out previously, there is no linear correlation between plastic consumption and plastic pollution. Because pollution is caused by mismanaged plastic waste, there are states that have high plastic consumption and low pollution, and vice versa. In fact, most ocean plastic pollution is caused by just a handful of countries, with three countries responsible for 18 percent of ocean plastic emission. The problem in most of these cases is a lack of waste management in developing nations, not rich countries consuming plastic.

Another big reason to favor the waste management side of the equation is that international treaty success hinges upon the cost of complying with a deal and the effectiveness of enforcement. Because plastic consumption is rising everywhere, a cap on plastic consumption would carry a cost to basically everyone. That creates a major incentive for people to skirt compliance with a consumption-limiting treaty, requiring an enforcement mechanism that can sufficiently compel such compliance. The problem with that strategy is that the biggest countries, which have the most to lose, also have the most say in treaty design and are less likely to want stringent compliance mechanisms. By contrast, a focus on waste management is far less costly to implement, incentivizes much broader treaty participation, and is directly effective in reducing plastic pollution.

We’ll have to wait and see what final language emerges from the negotiations, but the key to cutting plastic pollution is to avoid politicking or more ideological positions (e.g., banning plastic) in favor of evidence-based policies that directly address the problem.