Negotiation Timelines of International Legal Instruments: Key Considerations for the Future Plastics Treaty

The document analyzes the negotiation timelines of the Rotterdam, Minamata, and BBNJ agreements to demonstrate that international legal instruments often exceed their initial deadlines. It argues that the current process for the plastics treaty, governed by UNEA resolution 5/14, provides sufficient flexibility for the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to continue meetings beyond 2024 if necessary, as the resolution expresses an 'ambition' rather than a strict mandate for completion by that date.

• Multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) typically require varying timeframes for negotiation, ranging from slightly over one year to nearly five years before adoption, with further years often passing before they enter into force.
• The Rotterdam Convention serves as a precedent for continuing negotiations despite missing deadlines; its INC missed two UNEP Governing Council deadlines and held eleven sessions over more than eight years, including six sessions as an interim forum after the treaty was adopted but before the first Conference of the Parties (COP) in 2004.
• The Minamata Convention illustrates that significant work can occur after the Diplomatic Conference adopts the treaty text; the INC met for a sixth time in 2014 and a seventh in 2016 to prepare guidance and draft texts for the first COP on issues like the financial mechanism and reporting.
• The legal framework for the plastics treaty is more flexible than previous MEAs because UNEA resolution 5/14 describes the 2024 completion date as an 'ambition' and a 'recommendation' rather than a mandate, and it does not set a specific deadline for the diplomatic conference of plenipotentiaries.

APA

Sky, M. B. (2024). Negotiation Timelines of International Legal Instruments: Key Considerations for the Future Plastics Treaty. Center for International Environmental Law. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Treaty-Negotiation-Timelines.pdf

Chicago

Sky, Melissa Blue. Negotiation Timelines of International Legal Instruments: Key Considerations for the Future Plastics Treaty. Center for International Environmental Law, 2024. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Treaty-Negotiation-Timelines.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Sky |first1=Melissa Blue |title=Negotiation Timelines of International Legal Instruments: Key Considerations for the Future Plastics Treaty |publisher=Center for International Environmental Law |date=July 2024 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Treaty-Negotiation-Timelines.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{sky2024negotiation, author = {Sky, Melissa Blue}, title = {{Negotiation Timelines of International Legal Instruments: Key Considerations for the Future Plastics Treaty}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {2024}, month = jul, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Treaty-Negotiation-Timelines.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }