ASH joins the Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance in attending the fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Conference (INC-4) of the United Nations Treaty to End Plastic Pollution in Ottawa, Canada from April 23 – 29, 2024. ASH’s Chief Operating Officer Liz Furgurson and Policy Director Chris Bostic will share updates and progress here for our community to stay engaged and informed.
April 27, 2024 – It is the fifth day of negotiations and fatigue is becoming evident as sessions go to 11:00pm and later, and the weekend brings no respite.
Working groups are deep in text negotiations. And both contact groups that are negotiating our major interests will begin to move into text negotiation phases shortly.
ASH and the Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance (STPA) attended an open meeting convened by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights. Representatives are committed to ensuring human rights language is ‘mainstreamed’ through the treaty text.
ASH brought its knowledge of industry interference from tobacco policy to an informal group discussing ways to address obvious conflict of interest issues in the Plastics Pollution Treaty. As it is, independent scientists are viewed with the same trust as representatives of plastic producing companies. The current draft text is silent on the issue.
Sessions are again scheduled to begin at 8:00pm Saturday. Progress is slow, mainly due to stalling tactics by certain countries who wish to derail the treaty. There may come a time when the rest of the world needs to go on without them.
