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Author	Assoc Prof Michelle Limenta
Organisation/Institution	Universitas Pelita Harapan, Faculty of Law
Country	INDONESIA
Panel	International Regulation of Trade
Title	Content or Discontent with Indonesia’s Local Content Requirements – Assessment with WTO Rules
Abstract	‘Localization barriers’ have been around for a number of years. These includes: 'Made in this specific country' programme or 'Buy Local' initiative introduced by various national governments. Since the global financial crisis in 2008, ‘localization barriers to trade’ have been applied with increasing frequency, and the fastest growing of these measures are local content requirements (LCRs). Today, LCRs remain appealing policy measures used by many countries around the globe, including Indonesia, to protect and support their strategic sectors. The proponents of local content policies view that the LCRs promote development by increasing local production and creating jobs, protecting domestic infant industries, and encouraging technology transfer from foreign to local entities. In contrast, the opponents argue that the LCRs limit the sources of inputs, consequently increase production costs, eventually transferring higher costs and prices to the consumers, like you and me, and therefore producing economic inefficiency. In the past few years, however, several WTO members on the Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) Committee have been voicing their concerns over Indonesia’s LCR measures. Despite these concerns, Indonesia still use LCRs to incentivize industries that they consider strategic, including electricity and telecommunications, to support their development. This article seeks to analyze whether Indonesia’s LCR regulations in specific sectors are consistent with its international trade commitments under the multilateral trading system.
Biography	Michelle is an Associate Professor of Law at Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH), and director of the UPH Center for International Trade and Investment. She has been teaching legal courses such as international trade law, international and regional organizations, and international law at undergraduate and postgraduate levels since 2005. She is also managing an academic research center with a mission to engage in research and to promote capacity building in the laws, economics and policy of international trade and investment. Michelle completed her undergraduate legal studies in Indonesia at Trisakti University and an LLM at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She was awarded a doctoral scholarship to pursue her PhD at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In 2022, she won the Fulbright US-ASEAN Visiting Scholar Initiative Program that supports her research at Georgetown University Law Center. She has been a member of the Indicative List of Governmental and Non-Governmental Panelists to hear WTO disputes, following a nomination by the Government of Indonesia and an approval by the Word Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body in June 2019. Michelle is also an experienced researcher, policy consultant and legal practitioner providing services on a broad range of topics to international organizations, public and private agencies.