Exploring the Option of a New Global Agreement on Marine Plastic Pollution – A Guide to the Issues

and planned national implementation activities. Such transparency measures can be coupled with the establishment of a Conference of the Parties (COP), a secretariat, and/or a subsidiary body responsible for monitoring implementation. In combination, this can help generate greater confidence in compliance . Second, to address situations in which some parties are more affected by a particular provision than others, a supporting provision committing States to share technologies and fund implementation activities , including through the possible establishment of a joint implementation financing mechanism , may provide an incentive for States to sign up to and implement the agreement. For some issues, it has also proven possible to design the agreement as a bargain in which the implementation of a set of provisions of primary benefit to some parties are made dependent on implementation of another set of provisions of primary benefit to other parties. And third, to prevent free riding, it is possible, and quite common, to include a provision stipulating that the agreement will only enter into force as soon as a certain number of States or a certain category of States have ratified or otherwise acceded to it. In addition, it is possible to impose trade restrictions with non-parties or parties found in non-compliance with the agreement’s provisions. As trade restrictions will potentially harm both States subject to such restrictions and States imposing them, they have to be designed carefully.

Incentivizing participation and compliance

A third challenge in the design of effective agreements is to ensure that States sign up to and actually implement the provisions. Challenges related to participation and implementation are interlinked: a State is generally unlikely to commit to and implement the provisions of an agreement unless it can be reasonably confident that other States commit to and comply with the provisions as well. Because all States benefit from a global public good, while the costs are typically divided among those who choose to participate, there is a risk of free riding. If only a few States are perceived to be free riding, that might not necessarily cause problems for the legitimacy or effectiveness of the regime, but if a large group of States decide not to sign up to or comply with the new agreement, the cost of adherence may become prohibitively high for those that do. The risk of free riding is further exacerbated in situations where implementation of a provision cannot be directly monitored and/or verified by other parties. In addition, while some States may be more heavily affected by a problem than others, some States may also be more impacted, directly or indirectly, by a particular provision. This may create asymmetries that make it more difficult to ensure that States sign up to and implement the agreement’s provisions. There are several strategies available to address this challenge as well. First, supporting provisions can commit parties to incorporate measures into domestic legislation and to self-report on past

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