IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/lawdev/v18y2025i1p1-31n1002.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Government Supervision of Oil Palm Plantations in Indonesia: Legal Issues and Proposed Remedies

Author

Listed:
  • Nasir Mohamad

    (Anthropology and Development Studies, 6029 Radboud University , Nijmegen, Gelderland, The Netherlands)

  • Bakker Laurens

    (Anthropology, 1234 University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands)

  • van Meijl Toon

    (Anthropology and Development Studies, 6029 Radboud University , Nijmegen, Gelderland, The Netherlands)

Abstract

Palm oil is a major Indonesian export product, but governmental supervision of plantation corporationsʼ activities on the ground frequently fails, which leads to environmental damage as well as conflict between companies and communities. By employing a socio-legal approach, this study found that the legal framework of the development of oil palm plantations is imprecise, unclear and incomplete and, as a consequence, causes the governmentʼs weakness in supervising oil palm plantation operations. We discovered three main causes of this incompleteness of law in supervising oil palm plantations: the delay in establishing the implementing regulations, the absence of sanctions in case of non-compliance, and the use of imprecise words, and complex terms and language. In addressing such incompleteness, this study suggests drafting more detailed rules to minimize delegation to lower regulations, using more precise terms and concepts, and considering sanctions for officials who do not carry out their obligations. Furthermore, discretion can be an alternative to overcome the existing legal incompleteness in supervising oil palm plantation operations.

Suggested Citation

  • Nasir Mohamad & Bakker Laurens & van Meijl Toon, 2025. "Government Supervision of Oil Palm Plantations in Indonesia: Legal Issues and Proposed Remedies," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-31.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:lawdev:v:18:y:2025:i:1:p:1-31:n:1002
    DOI: 10.1515/ldr-2024-0014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/ldr-2024-0014
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/ldr-2024-0014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:lawdev:v:18:y:2025:i:1:p:1-31:n:1002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.