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The objective of this study, ‘A Study on Illegal Transboundary Movement of Waste in Thailand’, is to investigate patterns of crime involving the illegal transboundary movement of waste in Thailand, to analyze problem and obstacle to litigate transnational environmental crime organizations in Thailand and study measures to enforce the prevention and suppression of Involvement. The methodology includes a documentary research, case study and synthesis of in-depth interviews with Customs, Police, Special Case Officer, Attorney, NGOs and Environmental Law Specialists.
The results of multi-method qualitative study on the illegal transboundary movement of waste in Thailand demonstrate that Thailand is an economically significant trade and waste hub, but mainly as a port of import. A lot of the waste in Thailand is import from the United State, Hong Kong, Japan etc. Increase in fraudulent documents and misdeclaration of plastic waste have been a common modus operandi. The transport of waste is a result of existing shipping routes, the anonymity of containers offers particular advantage for organization wishing to transport illicit waste. The analysis of the actors involved; this study follows the flow of supply chain from exporter through transport to destination. The actors involved are exporter, waste broker, shipping companies, recyclers, downstream vendors, and actors responsible for final disposal. Their motives include the desire for money and loopholes in Thai legislation. The cases reported to administrative violations (missing or incomplete paperwork), as well as breaches of criminal law (movement of waste and waste-related commodities contravenes existing trade bans or other forms of regulation). Document fraud-through mislabeling of goods or disguising of contents or destination-has been identified as a major form of waste crime reported by Customs. The control and prevention of illegal waste transports involves a diversity of government actors. Customs, environmental administration and inspectorates, police and attorney each play a role on their own, in practice the cases thus hardly ever result in successful court cases, while fines are too low and prosecution is too slow to be effective, similar to other environmental case, the case settlement by Thai customs law was found that it is a major obstacle to prosecute the waste smuggler. Policy recommendations including in case of waste smuggling case settlement shall be exempt and Anti-Participation in Transnational Organized Crime Act B.E. 2556 shall come into force. |
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