Combating plastic pollution in international law: <i>lex lata</i> and <i>lex ferenda</i>

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Global plastic production has increased from 1.5 million tons in 1950 to 390 million tons in 2021, of which only 9 % was recycled, 19 % was incinerated, almost 50 % was disposed of in landfills and 22 % was dumped in landfills, where this waste could be openly burned or released back into the environment. Plastics have changed the global economy and the lives of billions of people for the better. However, their use comes with significant environmental and social costs. Plastic waste negatively affects human health and the environment. The life cycle of plastics covers the entire spectrum of activities, from raw material extraction, production, distribution, use, to disposal as waste, and environmental problems can arise at any stage of the plastic life cycle. Most plastic degrades very slowly in the environment. There are currently a number of international commitments to reduce marine litter and plastic waste, particularly from land-based sources, and several applicable international agreements and soſt law instruments related to trade in plastics or reducing impacts on marine life. However, none of the international documents provides a global, mandatory, specific and measurable target to reduce plastic pollution. In this regard, many states, as well as commercial actors and civil society, are calling for the adoption of a global instrument to regulate marine pollution from litter and plastics. In this article, significant attention is paid to the analysis of a future treaty aimed at combating plastic pollution.MATERIALS AND METHODS. This study is based on the analysis of a large volume of materials, including international legal acts, advisory acts, as well as modern doctrinal studies by Russian and foreign authors. The methodological basis of the study was general scientific (method of logical and system analysis, dialectical method, methods of deduction and induction) and special scientific (historical-legal, comparative-legal, formal legal methods, method of legal modeling and forecasting) methods of cognition.RESEARCH RESULTS. In the course of the study, various international acts of a mandatory and recommendatory nature were analyzed, the doctrinal positions set out in the scientific literature, put forward by domestic and foreign legal scholars, were summarized, and the main problems of combating plastic pollution were identified.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. Within the framework of this article, an attempt has been made to give answers to the following questions: to what extent the problem of plastic pollution is an important challenge for modern international law, whether current international law effectively regulates the problem of plastic pollution, what should be the content of a new treaty on plastic and what are the positions of states on its content.

Keywords

• international environmental law
• international environmental agreements
• combating plastic pollution