Regulatory Capture in Transboundary Waste Dumping: (Lack of) Accountability in the Global North–South Context
以斯里兰卡将危险医疗废物送回英国为例，揭示全球南方废物管理商业模式中市场与法律问责机制如何被利用，导致监管俘获和公共信任流失，并提出基于伦理问责的解决路径。
By showcasing Sri Lanka’s repatriation of hazardous hospital waste to the United Kingdom, this paper explores how the transboundary movement of waste management business model functions in the Global South. It builds on a framework that integrates the market and legal modes of accountability, regulatory capture, and an ethic of accountability. Data were collected using online ethnography and an interpretive case study method. The study demonstrates how the adherence to market and legal modes of accountability and the violation of an ethic of accountability have created loopholes for actors to capture regulatory and institutional provisions, making the transboundary waste management business redundant in the Global South. The traditional business model pursued in waste management has proved inadequate in realizing reciprocal societal rights and responsibilities and promoting public well-being. This has resulted in an erosion of public trust in government and state agencies. Thus, we argue that accountability-based accounting and the ethic of accountability can potentially mitigate the opportunities for regulatory capture, serve the public interests, and protect the ecosystem.