UNEP, the plastics treaty, and institutional reform

This post was originally written on August 18th, 2025

Across the world, public institutions are under attack. Liberal democracies have struggled to mount an effective defense against a simple, rightwing strategy to dismantle the institutions of the modern welfare state: first, criticize them as ineffective, corrupt, or politically compromised. Then use the political leverage gained thereby to inflict real damage, including by defunding them. Repeat ad nauseum. The weakened institutions lose the ability to fulfill their mission and the criticisms increasingly ring true. As public anger mounts, center-left parties find themselves defending increasingly ineffective institutions, further draining both of the political capital required to make them truly effective. In the end, liberal democracy, and the institutions it depends on, fail.

Now this strategy has come to the United Nations.

The United Nations is the ultimate symbol of liberal governance on the world stage. A forum to resolve interstate conflicts through dialogue rather than war. Institutions to solve humanity’s common problems: poverty, disease, pollution, and the like. Its existence is a testament to belief in the common good, beyond national or private self-interest. Authoritarians despise the United Nations.

For the last three years, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has hosted negotiations toward a new, international treaty to end plastic pollution. Of the 170 countries that have taken part in these negotiations, a small handful have sought to derail the process. Exploiting gaps in the rules of procedure and violating the spirit of consensus that is supposed to underlie such negotiations, these countries have consistently sought to obstruct, delay, and derail the process. Over 100 countries have coalesced around the elements of an ambitious new treaty but are unable to push it past the disrupting petrostates.

Exhausted and frustrated, this ambitious majority is now exploring the possibility of taking negotiations outside the UNEP framework. The UN, after all, has no monopoly on making treaties, which are agreements between sovereign states. But removing the negotiations from UNEP’s auspices — successfully concluding the negotiations that UNEP could not — would do serious damage to UNEP’s reputation. Finance ministries will ask why they should continue to support an ineffectual institution. This could touch off a downward spiral for UNEP.

Unable to reform UNEP and unwilling to abandon it, ambitious countries are left without a viable path to concluding treaty negotiations. But keeping the negotiations under UNEP does nothing to strengthen it; on the contrary, the longer they drag on, the more painfully obvious UNEP’s shortcomings become.

Fortunately, there is a way out of this dilemma. To successfully conclude treaty negotiations, the ambitious countries should finish the negotiations outside UNEP. Crucially, they must supply what UNEP has failed to: clear, effective rules of procedure and courageous, meaningful political leadership. They must be willing to exclude from the negotiations countries that will never join an effective treaty, such as the United States.

Despite its failures, UNEP should be given an important role in the treaty. It can house the secretariat or the subsidiary bodies or the dedicated fund or become an implementing agency. An important role for UNEP will shore it up with both political and financial support.

Finally, the ambitious countries must reform UNEP to ensure it is fit for purpose. Concluding the treaty outside UNEP will spotlight the institution’s failures, making the case for its reform undeniable. More importantly, it will provide a roadmap for reform. UNEP will emerge, perhaps humbled, but ultimately stronger.

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