Beyond Formal Protection: Reconstructing Legal Certainty and Enforcement in Indonesia’s Counterpurchase Agreements 7 5

Abstract

Counterpurchase has become an important instrument of international trade policy in Indonesia, particularly in government procurement involving imported goods, yet its legal protection remains weakened by the gap between formal regulation and effective enforcement. This study examines the legal construction of counterpurchase agreements, the adequacy of existing enforcement mechanisms, and the requirements for strengthening legal certainty. It employs normative legal research with statutory, conceptual, and critical approaches, using primary legal materials, regulatory instruments, and relevant legal scholarship. The analysis shows that counterpurchase should be understood as a hybrid regulatory-contractual institution because it combines contractual autonomy, reciprocal commercial obligations, administrative supervision, and state economic objectives. Although Indonesian law provides warnings, penalties, and blacklisting mechanisms, their effectiveness is limited by fragmented institutional authority, inconsistent enforcement, and weak integration between contractual remedies and administrative sanctions. The study argues that substantive legal certainty requires clearer allocation of supervisory authority, measurable contractual obligations, proportional sanctions, effective monitoring, and enforceable remedies for cross-border non performance. Its contribution lies in reconstructing counterpurchase protection beyond formal compliance toward an integrated enforcement framework capable of strengthening contractual predictability, regulatory accountability, and Indonesia’s national trade interests.