Reconstructing Land Dispute Resolution in Indonesia: Restorative Justice, Customary Tenure, and Keadilan Bermartabat

Teguh Prasetyo; Udin Silalahi; Vincensia Esti Purnama Sari; Jerry Shalmont

doi:10.21697/seb.5905

Published: 2026-09-09

Reconstructing Land Dispute Resolution in Indonesia: Restorative Justice, Customary Tenure, and Keadilan Bermartabat

Teguh Prasetyo

, Udin Silalahi

, Vincensia Esti Purnama Sari

, Jerry Shalmont

Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.5905

Abstract

Indonesia’s land dispute resolution and environmental governance systems remain fragmented across criminal, civil, administrative, and state-financial legal regimes, limiting their capacity to address agrarian and environmental conflicts involving customary tenure, institutional asymmetry, and state loss recovery. This article develops a normative framework for reconstructing land dispute resolution through Keadilan Bermartabat (Dignified Justice), a Pancasila-based theory requiring the simultaneous realization of justice, utility, and legal certainty. Using normative legal research combined with socio-legal analysis, the study examines three North Sumatran agrarian conflicts in relation to Indonesia’s Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, land regulations, and Government Regulation No. 48 of 2025. The analysis identifies four interconnected structural deficiencies: the absence of procedures adapted to institutionally complex land disputes; fragmentation among criminal, civil, administrative, and state-financial regimes; inadequate calibration of restorative justice to power asymmetries, institutional capture, and case scale; and insufficient recognition of customary land stewardship within abandoned-land regulation. To address these deficiencies, the article proposes a tiered restorative justice framework, an interagency coordination mechanism supported by shared case information, procedural safeguards for institutional-scale cases, and formal recognition of customary stewardship as a legitimate form of productive land use. It argues that land rights should be understood not only as transferable property interests but also as social, cultural, and ecological relationships grounded in human dignity, livelihood security, communal responsibility, and intergenerational stewardship. The proposed framework advances environmental justice and ecological stewardship while aligning legal certainty with substantive justice and institutional effectiveness in Indonesian land governance.

Keywords:

Keadilan Bermartabat (Dignified Justice), land dispute resolution, agrarian conflict, restorative justice, customary land tenure, Indigenous land rights, legal pluralism, environmental justice, ecological stewardship, land governance, SDG 16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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Prasetyo, T., Silalahi, U., Sari, V. E. P., & Shalmont, J. (2026). Reconstructing Land Dispute Resolution in Indonesia: Restorative Justice, Customary Tenure, and Keadilan Bermartabat. Studia Ecologiae Et Bioethicae. https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.5905

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