Recognition of Customary Adat Rights Within Indonesia's Land Registration System

The Indonesian Constitution has recognised customary law communities (masyarakat hukum adat) and their traditional rights since 2000. In this article, we refer to these rights as customary adat rights. Despite a significant increase in the legal recognition of customary law communities across Indonesia following a landmark Constitutional Court Decree in 2012 (Putusan MK 35/2012), which resulted in a more than twelvefold increase in the determination of customary adat territories and forest areas (Arizona et al, 2017), customary adat rights in Indonesia remain problematic to apply, particularly within the land registration system. The Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency, which governs Indonesia's land registration system, has produced several regulations regarding customary land, but these have not yet fully addressed the expectations of customary law communities. Given that context, this study reviews the incorporation of customary adat rights into the Indonesian land registration system, including both the legal framework and its actual implementation in practice. The study analyses the fundamental challenges associated with the allocation of specific customary land rights within Indonesia by considering the subject from the theoretical perspective of territory and territoriality.