Abstract
In February 2022, the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) is expected to mandate negotiations for a legally binding plastic agreement. In preparations for such discussions, it is important to understand the academic research behind what a global treaty on plastic will require to succeed. Therefore, a systematic literature review was conducted on 64 peer-reviewed articles published before July 4th, 2021, that focused on global plastic governance and avenues to mitigate our pollution crisis. Once reviewed, the articles were organized into a series of four main categories: (1) plastic pollution overview articles, (2) top-down solutions, (3) bottom-up solutions, and finally a (4) global treaty as a solution. The analysis of these articles enabled an overarching review and discussion of what the literature suggested is required for the creation of a global plastics agreement. First, the researchers argued that previous global plastics governance literature is characterized by an optimist governance perspective, i.e., a view of governance as a problem-solving mechanism. Second, global plastics governance as a research field could make headway by engaging in further empirical investigation of current negotiations and solutions at the national level, especially in developing nations. In the end we found that a global agreement is feasible if it allows for multi-stakeholder solutions involving industry, governance, stakeholders, and citizens.
Highlights
The research community began publishing studies on plastic and marine litter as early as 1968 and 1975 (Borja and Elliott, 2019)
We argue that a new legally binding agreement, whose pre-negotiations started in 2017 at the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) 3, is our current only concrete path toward an internationally legally binding instrument (ILBI) for curbing plastic pollution
We argue that for a globally binding treaty to work it needs to account for all phases of plastics lifecycle
Summary
The research community began publishing studies on plastic and marine litter as early as 1968 and 1975 (Borja and Elliott, 2019) These became regular topics in the literature from 1981 to 1987, respectively, but with a decidedly heavy focus on contamination (waste that enters nature) and pollution (when the contamination causes harm to humans or animals). This focus is corroborated by the agreements stemming from this period, namely the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, MARPOL, and the Basel Convention. This type of research has set the tone for human emotion in the plastic arena, where citizens react to eating and visually seeing the harm of plastic in the global environment.
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