The Centre for Human Rights, Multiculturalism, and Migration (CHRM2), together with Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) organized an online focus group discussion to discuss the impact of Job Creation Law No. 11/2020 on environment, climate changes, and vulnerable people. The Centre invited three well-known speakers; Yando Zakaria from Lingkar Pembaruan Agraria, Siti Rahma Mary from Jentera Law School, and Reynaldo Sembiring from Indonesian Centre for Environmental Law.
The forum is part of a research project by the Centre and funded by WFD. The main objective of the research is to examine norms in the Law No. 11/2020 which potentially affect environment, climate change, and vulnerable people such as indigenous, disabled, and people living in remote-coastal islands. It is believed that the main objective of the Law No. 11/2020 is part of the state’s strategy to lift up the standard of ease of doing business in Indonesia.
Yet, the remaining question is how should we protect environment and guarantee a certain people get benefits from big corporate and investment? It has been known that Indonesia has a long ago experienced environmental crisis. Land grabbing, conversion of protected land, soil and water pollution, and agrarian conflict have occurred before the enactment of the Job Creation. Many believe that the implementation of Job Creation Law will only make the environmental crisis worse.
Two researchers, Al Khanif, the chair of CHRM and Aan Efendi from the Faculty of Law, University of Jember will have a month to go to finalise the research. The outcome will be handed over to parliament as part of WFD program to help parliament revise some norms in the Job Creation Law.