Social Movement in Indonesian Mining Law Enforcement: The case of peasants-scholars nexus in karst mining dispute in Java

摘要

Java Island has serious environmental destruction since colonial times. Efforts to reduce the environmental burden of Java have been implemented for centuries by reallocating people and projects to outer islands. Nevertheless, Java is irreplaceable for several reasons. The ability of this island to provide good access to infrastructure and manpower becomes one of its pull factors to several development project, including mining and energy. One of large-scale mining projects in Java is karst mining in Central Java. Unfortunately, it has led to tremendous legal, social and political issues. The mining of karst in nearby agricultural zone of Kendeng Mountains works at the cost of social conflicts. To access the protection of their land and cultural rights, Javanese peasants have used divers path of justioe including access to court. They have obtained support from Indonesian scholars coming from different disciplines. The collaboration of peasants and scholars in judicial process is a new trend in Indonesian legal reform. The case of this mining dispute provides interesting lessons-learned with regard to the issue of social movement in judicial process. This paper discusses how collective actions of peasants and interdisciplinary scholars work to the enforcement of environmental, mining and administrative law; what factors have influenced the success and failures of these actions and the extent to which has it contributed to judicial activisms that relate to this dispute.