Indonesia Commission


Book Description

This report from the Council on Foreign Relation's Center for Preventive Action examines how best to avert conflict in Papua by supporting greater self-government and helping citizens realize greater benefits from development of natural resources.




The Constitution of Indonesia


Book Description

For decades, Indonesia's 1945 Constitution, the second shortest in the modern world, was used as an apologia by successive authoritarian regimes. A bare-bones text originally intended as a temporary measure, it did little beyond establish basic state organs, including a powerful presidency. It did not offer citizens real guarantees or protections. These weaknesses were ruthlessly exploited by the military-backed regime that President Soeharto headed from 1966 until his fall in 1998. The (first ever) amendments to the Constitution, which began the following year and were completed in 2002, changed all this. Enlarging and rethinking the Constitution, they ushered in a liberal democratic system based around human rights, an open society and separation of powers. These reforms also created a Constitutional Court that has provided Indonesia's first judicial forum for serious debate on the interpretation and application of the Constitution, as well as its first significant and easily-accessible body of detailed and reasoned judgments. Today, Indonesian constitutional law is rich, sophisticated and complex. This book surveys this remarkable constitutional transition, assessing the implementation of Indonesia's new constitutional model and identifying its weaknesses. After covering key institutions exercising executive, legislative and judicial powers, the book focuses on current constitutional debates, ranging from human rights to decentralisation, religious freedom and control of the economy.







Indonesia, Law and Society


Book Description

Since the first edition, Indonesia has undergone massive political and legal change as part of its post-Soeharto reform process and its dramatic transition to democracy. This work contains 25 new chapters and the 4 surviving chapters have all been revised, where necessary. Indonesia: Law and Society now covers a broad range of legal fields and includes both historical and very up-to-date analyses and views on Indonesian legal issues. It includes work by leading scholars from a wide range of countries. There is still no comparable, English language text in existence.




The Shariatisation of Indonesia


Book Description

This book is a succinct and critical account on the shariatisation of Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. It comes with an important conclusion that the change of such a non-theocratic state like Indonesia into a theocratic state is highly possible when its law is penetrated by those who want to change the state system.







Human Rights Culture in Indonesia


Book Description

Drawing on human rights discourse and a study of the difficulties faced by religious minority groups (using the Ahmadiyya minority group as a case study), this book presents three interconnected challenges to human rights culture in Indonesia. First, it presents a normative challenge, describing the gap between philosophical and normative principles of human rights on one side and the overall problems and critical issues of human rights at national and local levels on the other. Second, it considers the political problems in developing and strengthening human rights culture. The political challenge addresses the ability (or inability) of the state to guarantee the rights of certain individuals and minority groups. Third, it examines the sociological challenge of majority-minority group relationships in human rights discourse and practices. This book describes the background of human rights in Indonesia and reviews the previous literature on the issue. It also presents a comprehensive review of the discourses about human rights and political changes in contemporary Indonesia. The analysis focuses on how human rights challenges affect the situation of religious minorities, looking in particular at the Ahmadiyya as a minority group that experiences human rights violations such as discrimination, persecution, and violence. The study fills out its treatment of these issues by examining the involvement of actors both from the state and society, addressing also the politics of human rights protection.




Indonesian Private International Law


Book Description

This book is the leading reference on Indonesian private international law in English. The chapters systematically cover the whole of Indonesian private international law including commercial matters, family law, succession, cross-border insolvency, intellectual property, competition (antitrust), and environmental disputes. The chapters do not merely cover the traditional conflict of law areas of jurisdiction, applicable law (choice of law), and enforcement. The chapters also look into conflict of law questions arising in arbitration and assess Indonesian involvement in the harmonisation of private international law globally and regionally within ASEAN. Similarly to the other volumes in the Studies in Private International Law - Asia series, this book presents the Indonesian conflict of laws through a combination of common and civil law analytical techniques and perspectives, providing readers worldwide with a more profound and comprehensive understanding of the subject.




Indonesia’s Regional and Global Engagement


Book Description

Karim examines the changes and continuity of Indonesia’s foreign policy in the post-authoritarian era, under presidents Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo. Indonesia conceptualised and aimed to adopt four principle roles after 2004 – being a voice for developing countries; being a regional leader; being an advocate for democratic and human rights; and being a bridge-builder. These roles, however, were by no means stable and were constantly being negotiated and contested. Karim analyses the contested nature of Indonesian foreign policy and the limits this places on consistency in enacting these roles. He highlights two drivers for such limitations – conflicting role conceptions and state fragmentation. He develops this argument based on four case studies of Indonesia’s engagement in human rights governance and trade governance at both regional and global levels. Essential reading for students and scholars of Indonesia’s foreign policy, that will also be of substantial value to those studying policy in Southeast Asia more broadly.




Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia


Book Description

Indonesia's political and governmental structures underwent sweeping reforms in the late 1990s. After decades of authoritarian rule, a key aspect of the transition to constitutional democracy during this period was the amendment of the 1945 Indonesian Constitution - an important legal text governing the world's third largest democracy. The amended Constitution introduced profound changes to the legal and political system, including an emphasis on judicial independence, a bill of rights, and the establishment of a Constitutional Court. This volume, with chapters written by leading experts, explores the ongoing debates over the meaning, implementation, and practice of constitutional democracy in Indonesia. This includes debates over the powers of the legislature, the role of the military, the scope of decentralisation, the protection of rights and permissible limits on rights, the regulation of elections, the watchdog role of accountability agencies, and the leading role of the Constitutional Court. These legal issues are analysed in light of the contemporary social, political, and economic environment that has seen a decline in tolerance, freedom, and respect for minorities. Contributions to this volume review the past two decades of reform in Indonesia and assess the challenges to the future of constitutional democracy amidst the wide-spread consensus on the decline of democracy in Indonesia. Demands for amendments to the Constitution and calls to revert to its initial form would be a reversal of Indonesia's democratic gains.