Recognition and Legal Protection of Customary Rights of Customary Communities in the Indonesian National Land Legal System

Abstract

Ulayat rights are communal rights held by customary law communities over land and natural resources within their traditional territories, rooted in living customary law passed down through generations. Article 3 of Law Number 5 of 1960 concerning Basic Agrarian Principles (UUPA) recognizes the existence of customary rights, but such recognition is conditional upon their continued factual existence and conformity with national interest. This article analyzes the legal status of ulayat rights within Indonesia's national land law system, the criteria and procedures for their formal recognition, and the impact of Constitutional Court Decision Number 35/PUU-X/2012 on the paradigm of recognizing indigenous communities' rights. This research employs a normative juridical method using statutory and case approaches. The findings indicate that although a normative framework exists through the UUPA, Ministerial Regulation of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/Head of the National Land Agency Number 18 of 2019, and Constitutional Court jurisprudence that has shifted from a repressive-derogable to a progressive-derogable approach, implementation continues to face structural obstacles: overlapping sectoral regulations, dependence on local government political will, and the prolonged stagnation of the draft Law on Indigenous Peoples, delayed for more than eighteen years. This article recommends accelerating the passage of the draft law, harmonizing sectoral regulations, and developing a participatory, digitally based registration system for ulayat rights as strategic steps toward legal certainty and agrarian justice for customary law communities.