Empty promises: Indonesia's non-ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

ABSTRACT

Southeast Asia is one of the most underrepresented regions in the International Criminal Court (ICC). I address the question of non-ratification of the Rome Statute with a case study on Indonesia. While the Yudhoyono Administration has repeatedly promised to join the ICC, ratification has not materialized. I argue that Indonesia's tradition of emphasizing the protection of state sovereignty and economic gains in its foreign policy decisions best explains why it remains outside the ICC's jurisdiction. I test this claim by exploring Indonesia's human rights record, potential legal restrictions for the ratification of the Rome Statute, and the influence of domestic political players and external pressures.

KEYWORDS:

• Indonesia
• International Criminal Court
• ratification
• human rights
• state sovereignty
• ASEAN

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Academy of Finland and the Finnish Cultural Foundation for research funding and two anonymous reviewers as well as Timo Kivimäki, Ossi Piironen, Kim Lane Scheppele, and Beth Simmons for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. While the head of the Indonesian delegation to the Kampala Review conference of the Rome Statute in 2010 said that his country had supported the adoption of the Rome Statute in 1998 (Wirana 2010), several sources indicate that it most likely was not among the 120 states that voted for its adoption (The Washington Times 1998; Newsweek 1998; Van Schaak 1998: 49).

2. Indonesia's statements at the UN support this argument (Wirana 2010; GA/11357 2013; see also A/HRC/8/23/Add.1 2008: 3) as does the former Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Muladi, who identifies ‘the presumption of the primacy position of ICC over national courts’ and ‘anxiety over a possible threat to national sovereignty’ (2011) as hindrances for the accession to the ICC.

3. By the end of his term, Yudhoyono had ratified only 5 of the 12 planned treaties, as envisaged in the RANHAM of 2004 (see Presidential Decree No. 40 of 2004: Section B, Preparation on Ratification of International Human Rights Instruments. For the ratification status of international treaties, see UNTC 2015).

Additional information

Funding

Academy of Finland and the Finnish Cultural Foundation [grant number 268181].

Notes on contributors

Salla Huikuri

Salla Huikuri is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Political and Economic Studies. She has been a visiting Ph.D. student at Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and an exchange researcher at Waseda University School of Law (Tokyo). Her research interests include the ICC, IR-theories, sanctions, global governance, Arms Trade Treaty, and qualitative methods.