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Water law in Indonesia

Monday, February 12, 2007

I am doing some research on drinking water contracts between water companies and regulators/government, so my next updates will be dominated by water law issues.

Anyway, here's some info as a backgrounder. The Constitutional Court had declared Indonesia's new law on water resources "Conditionally Constitutional". This means that affected parties will have opportunity to submit another judicial review to the Court if they are able to prove that in practice, the law is implemented differently than what has been suggested by the Court.

I wrote an article on that issue which you can download here (pdf). And here's the abstract:

Enactment of the Water Law in Indonesia has arises public debate. The Judicial Review of the Law by the Constitutional added to this controversy as it puts the legality of the water regime in Indonesia in a “twilight zone”. This article explained the historical background of the water regime in Indonesia and its development, analyze the position of water rights and human rights to water under Indonesian Constitution, elaborates the key provisions of Indonesian water law, elaborate water law's judicial review by the Constitutional Court, analyzes the legal consequences of the review and recommend the government on the parts of the law that needs to be amended or modified. The author also discusses several important issues that needs to be weighed by governments when creating the water law's implementing regulation, including regulating several standard contract provisions between government and water investors.