SWOT Analysis: utilizing the Istanbul Convention on Temporary Admission as an alternative tool to manage e-waste generator from imported products

The volume of e-wastes are increasing rapidly every year, either from domestic or imported products. It is impossible to stop electronic goods production as people are so dependent on these. The Extended Producer... [ view full abstract ]

The volume of e-wastes are increasing rapidly every year, either from domestic or imported products. It is impossible to stop electronic goods production as people are so dependent on these. The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program has been regarded as an initiative that able to reduce the acceleration of the increasing of e-wastes by extending the responsibility of the manufacturer until the consumer post stage. However, establishing the EPR needs a comprehensive preparation and support from all national agencies, political support, special research with views and comments from related parties, developing new procedures, calculating cost of policy and benefit, and other works to be carried out. For most developing countries, such procedures are not easy to be reached in the near future.

While waiting those efforts in place, e-wastes are will be growing. Therefore, we need to find another possible international instrument to be introduced, particularly in developing countries.  

The Istanbul Convention on Temporary Admission is one of the Customs instruments issued by the World Customs Organization (WCO) that in principle related to the obligation of an importer to re-export the imported goods. This procedure has been applied in most of developing countries as member of the WCO.

By using the SWOT analysis this paper tries to analyze the nine principles in the temporary admission procedure in order to promote this convention as an alternative tool to manage e-waste generator from imported products. All principles are assessed equally by considering internal and external aspects.

The result shows that this convention has a good strengths and opportunities to be empowered as an alternative tool. Some weaknesses and threats hopefully can be overcome by modifying the procedure. However, since the paper is only analyze the principles of the convention, further study is indispensable to focus on procedural impact, cost of policy, and socio-economic impacts. Key words: e-waste; EPR; Customs; Istanbul convention; Temporary Admission; SWOT analysis