Jakarta, August 17, 2005
It cannot be denied that foreign direct investment (FDI) has played an important role in the economic development of my country because Indonesian development depends to a large extent on foreign capital. For example, Indonesia had used FDI more than US$ 200 billion (excluding oil and gas sectors) over the ten-year period from 1994 to 2004, as a means to accelerate its economic development. This fact has led Indonesia to attract further FDI inflows and to actively seek support from international institutions. As foreign investment has increased, so too have the environmental problems caused by it, such as industrial pollution, destruction of tropical forests, and the waste of natural resources. These negative environmental impacts have in turn hampered the success of Indonesian economic development.
The state of Indonesia's legal system is another issue affecting both foreign investment and economic development. The Indonesian legal system has been one of the major concerns of foreign investors for years because, according to them, they do not have much chance of obtaining fair and timely relief if they have to rely on the judicial system to resolve their environmental, commercial and investment disputes. Even generally speaking, Indonesian courts have been considered as corrupt, and biased towards Indonesian nationals only. It is therefore not surprising that arbitration–because of its speediness, independence, and confidentiality–is considered by foreign investors and businessmen as the most reliable and effective means to resolve their conflicts.
Due to the increasing use of arbitration to settle on those particular disputes, business people–mainly foreign investors–need sound legal advice and appropriate support in terms of technical expertise. Unfortunately, few lawyers in Indonesia are able to render adequate assistance in these fields. This inability has in fact raised serious concerns among academicians. It also confirmed a widely recognized phenomenon that the old system of current legal education here provides no proper training for students in dealing with investment-related disputes through arbitration. To overcome these problems, it is imperative that the national legal education standards and curriculum be modified, improved and developed, so that they are able to provide modern guidance to every law school in the country.
Nevertheless, it is not easy to formulate such a strong curriculum, capable of producing skilled law graduates, without highly qualified lecturers who can fully support the proposed programs. As a full-time senior lecturer, I am convinced that by attending a doctoral-in-law program, I would be able to improve my understanding of the subject areas, enrich my knowledge of the causes of the problems, and equip myself with better solutions. By pursuing this study, I hope that I can subsequently make a significant contribution to helping resolve the problems in question and bringing about a new approach and development of the Indonesian legal education, including at the very least my institution Tarumanagara University Law Faculty.
