The New Chemicals, Waste, and Pollution Panel Faces Its First Test in Geneva – Center for International Environmental Law

By Giulia Carlini and Rachel Radvany

New 12 months, new acronym! The newly established Intergovernmental Science-Coverage Panel on Chemical compounds, Waste and Air pollution (ISP-CWP) will meet in its first Plenary session from February 2-6 in Geneva, Switzerland. The Panel is designed to supply scientific assessments on chemical compounds, waste, and air pollution to tell policymakers at nationwide, regional, and worldwide ranges.

The Panel is a counterpart to present science-policy our bodies such because the Intergovernmental Science-Coverage Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Providers (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC). It’s not a treaty or conference, so outcomes won’t be legally binding. Nonetheless, if IPBES and the IPCC are any indication, it’s going to present essential data to be a key enabler for coverage change. 

The mandate for the panel was adopted on the fifth session of the United Nations Surroundings Meeting (UNEA-5.2), and for the final a number of years, it was known as the Science Coverage Panel. Governments established the ISP-CWP and formally adopted the title on the resumed third session of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG-3.2) in June of 2025, after two and a half years of intense negotiations. Nonetheless, after that assembly, many governance and operational points stay unresolved. 

This first Plenary session of the ISP-CWP goals to finalize a few of these foundational parts and allow the Panel to start its substantive work. So what ought to we count on from this assembly? 

On the Plenary session, governments shall be selecting up the place they left off at earlier conferences, aiming to finalize paperwork and procedures. Governments have had no less than some dialogue on most of those paperwork, however weren’t capable of attain a ultimate settlement and undertake them. Key resolution factors embody: 

1. Guidelines of Process

The principles of process govern how the Panel will function and embody participation and decision-making processes. Ending these guidelines through the Panel session is a prime precedence.  

Such guidelines have been mentioned intimately in OEWG-3.2 together with the related elements of the foundational doc. Some essential parts stay unresolved, together with the principles governing observer participation within the Panel and its conferences. It’s crucial that governments preserve as broad observer participation as attainable with a purpose to make sure the Panel’s credibility and legitimacy. That is additionally in keeping with the Panel’s agreed working ideas, which embody making certain transparency. 

2. Battle of Curiosity Coverage

A battle of curiosity coverage will outline how consultants and stakeholders concerned within the Panel are evaluated for potential bias. This coverage is important to make sure that the Panel’s outcomes are scientifically unbiased – constant additionally with its working ideas – and that the Panel maintains its credibility and trustworthiness. Trade actors with vested pursuits in sustaining the manufacturing of dangerous chemical compounds and merchandise shouldn’t be allowed to affect the Panel’s work. Subsequently, the battle of curiosity coverage should be clear and robust, together with the potential of excluding consultants with conflicts from the Panel’s work. 

3. Work Program and Deliverables Course of

There are two extra procedural paperwork which are important to addressing how the Panel will decide its work program and the way assessments and deliverables are ready and authorised. 

These paperwork should guarantee transparency, together with via observer participation and enter into the Panel’s work program. This can assist uphold the Panel’s legitimacy because it begins its work. 

Consensus Determination-Making

Within the basis of the Panel, international locations agreed that each one substantive choices should be made by consensus, that means any nation can block progress. This creates a severe danger  for the Panel’s future. Consensus-based guidelines usually result in a lowest-common-denominator consequence that hamstrings progress, the place ambition and scientific integrity are weakened to accommodate probably the most resistant voices. In a scientific panel, that is particularly harmful since scientific consensus is constructed on proof, not political settlement. Permitting governments to veto findings or suggestions offers States with vested pursuits the ability to delay, dilute, or derail the Panel’s work, undermining its potential to ship clear, unbiased, and well timed scientific steering. 

Delay ways or efforts to dilute the language of the Panel’s insurance policies and processes will possible abound at this assembly, and Member States should stay vigilant and maintain the road on essential points which are central to the Panel’s success. 

Transparency and Civic House

As multilateralism is underneath assault in numerous areas, we’re seeing shrinking civic house and restrictions on observer participation, which is harmful and threatens to undermine the great work occurring in these processes. Past transparency, civil society observers — which embody unbiased scientists — carry priceless insights to bear at intergovernmental science and coverage conferences, and this solely strengthens the standard of the outputs. 

As negotiators look to formalize paperwork just like the Guidelines of Process, it’s important to concentrate to how observer participation is addressed. 

Rights of Indigenous Peoples

At earlier conferences, there was a proposal to conflate Indigenous Peoples with native communities. Combining Indigenous Peoples with different teams causes battle and confusion underneath totally different nationwide circumstances and undermines their rights as enshrined within the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Many international locations defended the rights of Indigenous Peoples and supported conserving Indigenous Peoples separate from different teams all through the texts of the brand new Panel. Will probably be essential that international locations proceed to help Indigenous Peoples’ distinct rights and participation on the ISP-CWP’s first Plenary session. 

Gender Dynamics

At OEWG-3.2, gender was one of the vital contentious subjects, with sure international locations preventing its inclusion or trying to redefine the time period within the Panel’s textual content. This led to the time period being bracketed all through the foundational doc. The gender dimension of the impacts of chemical compounds, waste, and air pollution is well-documented, with girls usually being extra impacted by poisonous exposures and having fewer possibilities to take part in decision-making. The answer? Together with gender-responsive science within the Panel, this shall be crucial to making sure equitable policymaking on this area. 

At Plenary 1, it will likely be essential to observe for key points that embody: 

Makes an attempt to limit observer participation — together with girls, youth, public curiosity nongovernmental organizations, Indigenous Peoples, and unbiased scientists — and reduce transparency
Additional delays in adopting governance paperwork
Efforts to weaken conflict-of-interest safeguards
Language adjustments affecting Indigenous Peoples’ recognition

Though the Panel shouldn’t be legally binding, it’s anticipated to be a serious enabler of science-based coverage on chemical compounds, waste, and air pollution. It is necessary for governments to do not forget that unbiased science is essential, and the precautionary precept ought to information all work. Whereas it might take a while for the Panel to be totally operational, there’s sufficient scientific proof to behave to cease preventable illness and demise brought on by chemical compounds, waste, and air pollution. 

The primary assembly of the ISP-CWP is a foundational assembly that may form the Panel’s future credibility, transparency, and effectiveness. It comes at the beginning of a 12 months that’s wealthy in geopolitical shifts and tensions, and the assembly has the potential to have an effect on different multilateral conferences this 12 months. 

Selections made within the February assembly will decide how nicely the Panel can present unbiased, policy-relevant steering on chemical compounds, waste, and air pollution.  

Revealed on January 28, 2026