A Rendezvous with Destiny: The Past, Present, and Future of Indonesian Legal Scholarship
Once perceived as a rising power and impending threat to hegemonic powers, Indonesia used to be a giant of international law. The 1955 Bandung Conference and the entire formation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea up to 1982 are just two of many historical testaments to the nation’s epoch-making strides as the forerunner of the Global South. Its very independence was—and still is—a showcase to the world that an archipelago of colonized peoples could strive to change entire courses of history through perseverance in the fight for justice and equity.
Central to all these achievements are the intellectual movements that steered progress across all walks of life, from the medical doctors that radicalized Indonesian youths to the diaspora communities in mainland Europe who advocated for the nation’s recognition. In the years that followed, names like Sjahrir and Kusumaatmadja colored discourses not only at home but around the world. Their contributions to philosophical and legal thoughts practically put the country on the map, conveying an impossible-to-miss statement to the world that it should not be taken lightly. For a time, it indubitably lived up to the aspiration.
The New Order era of President Suharto, very ironically, brought with it anything but positive newness in intellectualism. A regime controversially legitimized by a bloody nationwide divide in the ‘fight against communism’, it was marred by what is now infamously labeled as intellectual genocide. Although the country continued to be of relevance in the international legal and political theater during the early years, this moment in time could be said as the nexus at which scholarship slowly waned as the older generation of thinkers phased out. It was nearing the downfall of a 32-year reign that many finally came to the hapless realization that the glory that once was no longer remained.
A Perfect Misfortune
It is not remotely unreasonable to judge the present day state of scholarship across almost if not all fields of law in Indonesia as less than satisfactory at best. One simply could not exhaustively list the problems in academia—legal and otherwise—that are not at all hard to come by in social media. Plagiarism and authorship misrepresentation often make headlines recently, indicating how far astray the community is from its illustrious origins. The ‘devil’ solely blamed by most is the ridiculous system which governs academics, said to only perpetuate misconducts through a quantity-centric rewards mechanism. As much as this is true, the problem runs deeper within legal education and scholarship therewith.
A stark difference can be observed between people’s impression of law students in Indonesia and abroad. While in most advanced legal systems the field is seen as one of demanding nature and thus attracts the most rigorous individuals of a generation, the image seen in Indonesia is the diametric opposite. Often satirically twisted as Sarjana Undang-Undang (law as in the piece of legislation instead of the science of jurisprudence), law school graduates in the country are often stereotyped as legislation memorizers that do not have the analytical prowess or even willingness to go beyond positivistic creeds, depriving themselves of the ability to critically examine and imagine the law as a living instrument for change. The legal profession, academia, and even the highest judicial institutions of the land are full of such ‘jurists’.
Law schools play a big part in allowing this to happen. Aside from the outdated practices of legal pedagogy that put lecturers as all-knowing single sources of truth, the lack of rigor in reading, writing, and even speaking is evident even in the most prominent institutions. While students in American law schools have grappled with rudimentary questions on the separation of law and morals and realpolitik influence over criminal justice through the many student-run law reviews that have by now existed for more than a century, Indonesians still struggle to properly use prepositions in a sentence, let alone expose the tainted moral grounds upon which the system stands.
The years-long conditioning of university teaching has evolved into rooted lethargy that makes it virtually impossible to produce globally acclaimed breakthroughs without first breaking free from the habitual problems of the everyday student. There is a vivid paradox between the systemic practices of legal education and the world-class expectations chokingly imposed on the people who already have a hard enough time trying to accustom something that should have been a given. Changing this matter of fact is certainly a herculean undertaking, and one that is levied by all.
A Hope in Time
Legal scholarship globally is changing. Thanks to the technological breakthroughs that have caused many of the younger generations to be less keen on quandaries, the gates that used to be shut closed for ‘outsiders’ of academia have now started opening for those who dare to cross. The emergence of online journals and blogs on various areas of law—although mainly still dominated by international law—have allowed for timely discussions of various legal issues. In almost true instantaneity, one could conveniently read what some of the greatest minds have to say about judgments of international tribunals or landmark events in other jurisdictions. The best part of it is the fact that slowly but surely, the ability to take part in these critical exchanges is becoming more democratized.
At Juris Gentium Law Review, we believe that students, of all people, should benefit the most out of this opportunity. The aforementioned problems may be told from the experiences we have witnessed at home in Indonesia, but it is by no means unique to it. We have ourselves proven that it is indeed possible to engage with global discourses as a student, and that it is something that should be both celebrated and mainstreamed. Through our print and online journals, we hope to provide options for students to take that first and subsequent steps in international and comparative law scholarship; to stand on the shoulders of and hopefully among giants, starting with articles that would take no more than one coffee shop visit to write from start to end.
Rafsi Albar is the Editor-in-Chief of Juris Gentium Law Review for its tenth volume, also a government advisor with a law degree from Universitas Gadjah Mada. He specializes in public [and] international law at the intersectional area of human rights. He often employs comparative approaches for the prior and critical ones for the latter. He has published in prestigious platforms like the Harvard International Law Journal, the Harvard Human Rights Journal, the Oxford Human Rights Hub, and Opinio Juris.