Plastics Negotiations Update Part I: The One-day INC 5.3

Craig Boljkovac, Independent International Environmental Consultant, Senior Advisor, and Lecturer Basel/Stockholm Convention Regional Centres (Asia-Pacific)/Tsinghua University School of Environment · Part-time

Recently, there have been some significant developments regarding negotiations, convened by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) for a global plastics treaty. This is the first of two brief blogs bringing things up-to-date.

 A brief, one-day session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 5.3) took place on 7 February 2026 in Geneva (back-to-back with the clearly stalled negotiations to initiate an of the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (ISP-CWP) – more on that in a separate blog).

To briefly summarize, INC 5.3 was held due to the resignation of the President of the negotiations, an Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso from Ecuador who unfortunately struggled to find a way forward for the negotiations. The session was planned with a one-day, completely administration-focused agenda: to simply elect a new INC President, hopefully by acclamation, but, if not, through a voting process governed by the semi-agreed Rules of Procedure. In addition, the rapporteur for the INC Bureau (from a SIDS country) had also resigned and also needed to be replaced. To be clear, no substantive issues were on the agenda for INC 5.3 – not even a determination of the time and place of the next negotiation session (INC 5.4), which remains to be decided.

There were three candidates for the job: a diplomat from Pakistan (Nazia Zaib Ali) who, according to my understanding/recollection, had just joined the INC process at the beginning (5.1) of the extended 5^th round; Senegal’s Cheikh Sylla, an “old hand” in the chemicals and wastes field and, the eventual “winner” Ambassador Julio Cordano of Chile, a long-time negotiator under the UNFCCC process. Longtime chemicals and waste negotiations expert Ambassador Johanna Lissinger Pitz of Sweden, Bureau member, had agreed to temporarily chair the session until the new President could be selected. She had a very tough job, indeed!

The INC started with a very scripted description of the suggested process for the day, given by Ambassador Lissinger Pitz. She suggested the group go directly to the first round of voting. Predictably (as a member of the group of “like-minded” countries who had been successfully delaying the negotiations since INC-2, held at Paris in May-June 2023), Kuwait requested that the INC adjourn for “several hours” to try to reach consensus on a single candidate (the candidates had been known for several months already, and the Chair seemed surprised to learn that Kuwait felt that still more time was needed for further deliberations). Iran (among others) back Kuwait’s suggestion, stating that since their Internet had been cut off for weeks (due to massive, anti-government demonstrations) they had been unable to participate in online pre-meetings where the candidates had presented their case for becoming President. Russia also joined in, stating that they would like to, in detail, ask each candidate how they would follow the Rules of Procedure regarding the future negotiations under the INC process.

The Chair, while expressing skepticism about adjourning, agreed to have the plenary hear from each of the candidates, as they made their case for being selected President. Ms. Ali stressed in her intervention (all three were strictly time-limited) that she would be truly neutral (Pakistan, as a vocal member of the “Like-Minded” group of countries, was far from neutral in the negotiations to-date); Cheikh Sylla gave a more substantive intervention focusing on the widespread support for his candidacy and stressing his almost 40 years of experience in this field; and Julio Cordano gave a very structured, slightly impassive but sincere intervention stressing his long experience in the climate change negotiations and some of the outcomes that he had facilitated.

After the interventions, the Chair ruled that the plenary would adjourn for around an hour, and (a bit ambiguously), she assigned a room for the three candidates to go “consult” with each other (it wasn’t clear if others could attend and ask questions, as the Russians had demanded) to see if we could have a new President by acclamation. Curiously, the Russian delegation seemed to stay in the plenary room during the adjournment (not even checking to see if they could participate in the other room) despite expressing their strong desire, in their previous intervention, to grill the candidates.

Upon reconvening (well after the allotted hour had passed) when it was clear that there was still no consensus, the meeting finally went directly to a vote. The voting was held in a very rigorous and formal manner. The result from the first round was as follows: 155 countries voted (therefore 78 votes was a majority): Chile received 73 votes, Senegal 48 votes and Pakistan 34 votes. Therefore, Pakistan, coming in third place, automatically dropped out, with only Chile and Senegal remaining.

In my view, by this point, the gap between the votes was such that there was no chance Senegal could win, and the Chair asked directly if a new INC President could be immediately acclaimed. Unfortunately, however, this did not take place. Another like-minded member state asked for more time, yet again, to try to determine if we could have acclamation through consultation. Chair Lissenger Pitz then indicated that she required 15 minutes in her office with the two remaining candidates to “knock heads together” and determine if yet another time-consuming (and less desirable than consensus) vote could be avoided.

After another almost 2 hours passed, there was still no consensus (in addition to the private session of the 2 remaining candidates and the Chair, the Arab and African Groups also caucused together to see if they had enough votes to overcome Chile’s frankly overwhelming lead). Upon reconvening, there was yet another request in plenary to the two remaining candidates as to whether they were able to decide on a President, and, predictably, there was no resolution. The second (and last) round of formal voting was thereby held. The results were:145 countries voted, with 73 votes required to win. There were 4 abstentions; Chile received 93 votes, and Senegal received 53. A new INC President was elected!

Once there was a President, Ambassador Lissinger Pitz happily relinquished the chair to Julio Cordano, who immediately continued the short agenda with the next item:  to decide upon a new Bureau member representing SIDS. Linroy Christian of Antigua and Barbuda was immediately proposed and acclaimed; and similarly for a decision on a new rapporteur (the present Bureau member from Georgia, representing Central and Eastern Europe countries).

By this time, it was evening (so much for a short, one-day INC!) and finally we had concluding interventions from all three candidates. Pakistan and Senegal were very gracious, and (particularly Senegal) stated clearly that his delegation would fully support the continued negotiation process. The new President then called the meeting to a close and said that a new date and time of (now) INC 5.4 would be decided by the Bureau in direct consultation (with the insistence of Russia!) of the member states.

A couple of brief observations: 1) the INC continued, in part, the spirit of almost total lack of cooperation that was experienced during the previous five days of the ISP-CWP (and INC 5.2 in August, 2025). It was slightly less chaotic, but the INC 5.3 Chair Ambassador Lissenger Pitz very much got the job done. 2) Certain key country delegations were relatively ineffective (bordering on silent).  This continued their almost total lack of (at least visible) influence during the previous session (ISP-CWP). Hopefully this will be rectified in future sessions.

Any questions? Email me pls: cboljkovac@gmail.com