PPP’s Collective Action Managing C&D Waste in Saudi Kingdom: Regulatory Challenges and Possible Solutions

Private investors’ collaborations with the government through public–private partnership (PPP) arrangements in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) are incrementally involved to achieve well-organized administration of construction and demolition (C&D) waste, as a key push of the Kingdom for the divorce economy and environmental sustainability under Vision 2030. KSA legal and public authorities are continually creating technical guidelines and regulations, such as WML and MOMRAH in 2024, that mandate C&D waste disposal into designated facilities. However, this research highlights several key areas of uncertainty in the legal instruments governing both C&D waste and PPP arrangements, a lack of an agreement designating the responsibilities of persons handling the C&D waste, and identifying a proper legal nature of the PPP’s contracts. Equally, this research highlights how the KSA’s PPP laws tackle the oversight challenge that is required for a proper monitoring of the PPP projects, as well as allowing recourse to arbitration for dispute settlement. This research uses the qualitative critical analysis approach to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the main issues surrounding the legal framework of C&D waste disposal in KSA. This research uses the analytical qualitative legal analysis approaches, which investigate the problems in question from the law texts and find possible recommendations. Furthermore, this research used a comparative approach by investigating the PPP’s disputes in Veolia Propreté v. Arab Republic of Egypt, ICSID Case No. ARB/12/15.