1* Doctoral Student, Faculty of Law, University Sumatera Utara, Indonesia. Email: ivanarambey@usu.ac.id | ORCID: 0009-0000-5621-0187 (Corresponding Author)
2 Professor, Faculty of Law, University Sumatera Utara, Indonesia. Email: yasminlubis@usu.ac.id | ORCID: 0009-0002-5558-4448
3 Professor, Faculty of Law, University Sumatera Utara, Indonesia. Email: rosnidarsembiring@usu.ac.id | ORCID: 0000-0001-9010-1611
4 Professor, Faculty of Law, University Sumatera Utara, Indonesia. Email: tankamello77@usu.ac.id | ORCID: 0009-0006-1304-7379
The Customary land is a form of land ownership in Indonesia that is collectively used by indigenous communities as a means to meet their daily livelihood needs. Recognition of customary land is regulated in various legal regulations such as the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, the Basic Agrarian Law No. 5 of 1960, and various derivative regulations. However, the implementation of legal protection for the rights of indigenous communities over customary land still faces serious challenges. Inconsistent customary land regulations have led to numerous customary land disputes, resulting in the disregard for customary rights as indigenous populations' fundamental rights. This research is a doctrinal study with a black letter law approach, which relies on the law to explain the law, with the aim of systematizing, improving, and clarifying the law on the topic of customary land. This study analyzes the concept of customary land in Indonesian law and evaluates the extent to which existing legal instruments are able to guarantee the protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples by analyzing court decisions, legislation, and combining them with a conceptual approach to human rights. The results of the study show that court decisions and existing regulations are not yet able to fully protect the human rights of indigenous peoples. The recommendations of this study are to encourage agrarian reform to explicitly include customary land rights as collective rights equal to individual property rights, to include a mechanism for registering collective customary land that is different from the ordinary property rights system, to establish an independent institution for resolving indigenous land conflicts, and to include the protection of indigenous peoples' human rights in the national development and investment agenda.
Keywords: Customary Land, Indonesian Legislation, Customary Land, Human Rights, Communities.
How to cite this article: Rambe IN, Yamin M, Sembiring R, Kamello T. The Legal Strategies Concept for Protecting the Customary Rights and Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples Based on Indonesian Law. Int J Drug Deliv Technol. 2026;16(5): 144-147. DOI: 10.25258/ijddt.16.5.16
Source of support: Nil.
Conflict of interest: None