How international investment law could freeze global action on plastic pollution

Abstract

The deadlock in the plastics treaty negotiations has exposed the weight of petrochemical interests, yet a second constraint on plastics regulation has drawn little scholarly attention. Some 3,300 international investment agreements allow foreign investors, petrochemical and plastics manufacturers among them, to sue states directly before arbitral tribunals when regulation reduces the value of their assets. Evidence from climate, tobacco and pesticide policy indicates that the threat of such claims can delay or dilute public-interest measures, a phenomenon known as regulatory chill. This article maps the exposure of plastics regulation to investment law, to our knowledge the first mapping of its kind, and sets it beside the public numbers on both sides. Drawing on production statistics for 1950–2023, UNCTAD arbitration data to end-2024 and OECD projections to 2060, we extrapolate two trends: primary plastics production reaches about 1,235 million tonnes by 2060, and the known arbitration caseload passes two thousand in the mid-2030s. We identify the measures most exposed: production caps, polymer and additive bans, producer-responsibility levies and waste-trade restrictions, consider how arbitration risk may shape bargaining inside the negotiations and assess reform pathways from express carve-outs to interpretive tools that preserve host-state regulatory autonomy.