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Legal Aspect of Plastic Waste Management in Indonesia and Malaysia: Addressing Marine Plastic Debris

Marine plastic debris is a common issue faced by the entire international community, with some countries finding it exceptionally difficult to address and combat the issue, including Indonesia and Malaysia. The two neighboring countries are ranked as the largest contributors of plastic waste in the ocean. Unmanaged plastic waste that will ultimately end up in waters and seas has become a major issue that Indonesia and Malaysia must deal with, and a firm legal approach holds a key role for both countries in solving the issue. This paper is devoted to normatively analyzing the various legal approaches that are/can be used by Indonesia and Malaysia, and to identify the problems related to such approaches. This article applies normative legal research, in which various legal instruments and other secondary legal materials are descriptively analyzed to unravel the legal issues. The main findings reveal that laws and regulations, as well as public policies that serve as a legal basis and approaches to deal with plastic waste governance in Indonesia and Malaysia, still possess some weaknesses, including the absence of distinctive provisions specifically aimed at dealing with plastic waste, the lower legal binding power of some instruments due to their soft-law nature, and the application of rather ineffective approaches. One important initial step towards actually exerting the legal approaches in governing plastic waste in both countries is to strengthen the governing structure and legal culture surrounding the management of plastic waste. Finally, this paper encourages the establishment of a bilateral agreement between Indonesia and Malaysia that will allow both countries to formulate a more legally binding framework for tackling the issues of marine waste in general and marine plastic debris in particular.