Agrarian Reform as Agrarian Justice: Confronting the Agrarian Regime’s Ineffectiveness in Realizing Distributive Justice and Human Rights

Abstract

The reduction of agrarian justice within Indonesia’s agrarian reform policy to a mere land certification scheme and asset legalization program reflects a narrowing of its normative mandate as an instrument for realizing distributive justice. Consequently, the agenda of rectifying inequalities in land tenure and safeguarding the human rights of marginalized communities involved in land conflicts is sidelined. This research seeks to assess the effectiveness of agrarian reform in Indonesia in advancing distributive justice and human rights, and to examine the ideality of its outcomes through the lens of The Legal System theory by Lawrence M. Friedman and A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. This research is normative, employing a statute approach focused on policy evaluation through legal system analysis of Presidential Regulation Number 86 of 2018. The findings show that the effectiveness test, based on the three elements of the legal system, indicates that the presidential regulation a quo remains confined within an administratively driven legalization paradigm that is normatively ambiguous, structurally deficient in affirmative and rights-based oversight mechanisms, and culturally problematic insofar as it reinforces the commodification of land. Accordingly, it has not effectively realized distributive justice or substantive recognition of human rights. From a theoretical standpoint, ‘agrarian reform as agrarian justice’ within Rawlsian theory requires the integration of the principle of equal basic liberties and the difference principle as evaluative standards. Agrarian reform attains moral legitimacy only when it substantively restructures land control to expand productive access and maximize benefits for the least advantaged.

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