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The Challenges of Teaching Comparative Law and Socio-Legal Studies at Indonesia's Law Schools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2019

Herlambang P WIRATRAMAN
Herlambang P WIRATRAMAN*
Affiliation:
Universitas Airlangga, Indonesiaherlambang@fh.unair.ac.id
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Abstract

This article addresses the role of legal research methodologies in the development of legal science and the creation of social change in Indonesia. Based on fieldwork conducted at Indonesian law schools between 2014 and 2016, this article reveals that legal research methods taught in Indonesia are starkly divided into normative-juridical and empirical-juridical approaches. Misunderstandings between adherents of these different schools of thought pose significant obstacles to the development of interdisciplinary approaches to law that span or go beyond the divide. Methodological conflicts resulting in the absence of socio-legal approaches in Indonesian law schools, coupled with outdated and limited source materials, limit the study of comparative law in Indonesia to the mere comparison of statutes and rules shorn of socio-political context. They also fail to instill awareness of the importance of considering social – on top of legal – impact in the context of Indonesia's complex and pluralist legal system.

Type
Article
Information
Asian Journal of Comparative Law , Volume 14 , Supplement S1 , October 2019 , pp. S229 - S244
Copyright
Copyright © National University of Singapore, 2019 

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Footnotes

*

Lecturer at Constitutional Law Department, Faculty of Law, Universitas Airlangga; Executive Director of Center of Human Rights Law Studies (HRLS) Faculty of Law, Universitas Airlangga. This article is based on a paper presented at the conferences entitled ‘The State of Comparative Law in Asia’ and ‘Teaching Comparative Law in Asia’ on 27 and 28 September 2017, organized by the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS) Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and the Asian Law Institute (ASLI).

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36. ibid.

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38. Interview with HP, a doctoral student from University of Jember (Jember, 12 April 2015).

39. From an interview as quoted in Putro and Wiratraman (n 11).

40. ibid.

41. Interview with Peter Machmud Marzuki (n 33).

42. ibid.

43. One such instructor is Iman Prihandono, Head of the International Law Department and teacher of comparative law at the Faculty of Law, Airlangga University. He received his PhD from Macquarie University Law School. He argues that data and the socio-legal approach are necessary to be considered in order to analyze law from its context. His writings on transnational human rights litigation have been cited by many scholars, and such writings actually adopted interdisciplinary studies of law. See Prihandono, Iman, ‘Barriers to Transnational Human Rights Litigation against Transnational Corporations (TNCs): The Need for Cooperation between Home and Host Countries’ (2011) 3 Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution 89Google Scholar. Another instructor is Amira Paripurna, member of the Criminal Law Department and senior researcher at the Center for Human Rights Law Studies (HRLS) at the Faculty of Law, Airlangga University. She received her PhD from Washington University Law School. She also uses a multidisciplinary approach in analyzing law for both teaching and research. One of her latest articles exemplifies the use of this approach. See Paripurna, Amira, Indriani, Masitoh, and Widiati, Ekawestri P, ‘Implementation of Resolution no. 4/2016 of the ICPO-INTERPOL Concerning Biometric Data Sharing: Between Countermeasures Against Terrorist Foreign Fighters (FTFS) and Protection of the Privacy of Indonesian Citizens’ (2018) 5 Brawijaya Law Journal 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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49. From an interview as quoted in Putro and Wiratraman (n 11).

50. Bedner and others (n 18).

51. From an interview as quoted in Putro and Wiratraman (n 11).

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53. Zweigert and Kötz (n 4) 34.

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