"Appendix: Law Concerning Environmental Management Law No. 23 of 1997" [2006] ELECD 511; in Faure, Michael; Niessen, Nicole (eds), "Environmental Law in Development" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Environmental Law in Development

Editor(s): Faure, Michael; Niessen, Nicole

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845425197

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Appendix: Law Concerning Environmental Management Law No. 23 of 1997

Extract:

11. Towards effective environmental
legislation in Indonesia?
Michael Faure and Nicole Niessen

1. INTRODUCTION
The preceding chapters each dealt with distinct aspects of environmental law
reform in developing countries, focusing on Indonesia. In this final chapter we
draw some general conclusions and formulate some general recommenda-
tions. To that end, our final analysis also builds on general theories about
law reform in developing countries and which obstacles law reformers must
anticipate.
The direct cause for the revision of the Environmental Management Act
1997 (EMA 1997) has been the enactment of the Regional Government Act
1999 (RGA). But the ambitions of the Indonesian Ministry for the
Environment, supported by environmental non-government organizations ­ go
beyond merely adjusting the EMA 1997 to the RGA 1999. Presently, a full
revision of the EMA 1997 will be under way due to dissatisfaction with vari-
ous elements of its environmental protection regime. For this purpose a
research team of Maastricht University was asked to give legal advice. An
analysis of the EMA 1997 has indeed revealed a number of problems that can
be healed, or avoided, by drafting new legal provisions. To that end all the
chapters in this book contain concrete recommendations. At the same time,
however, the authors emphasize that law does not provide answers to all the
shortcomings in the environmental protection scheme, but instead profound
cultural and institutional changes are demanded.
In these conclusions we briefly refer back to the major issues that have been
raised in the various chapters. As ...