Legal Protection of Community Land Rights in Land Acquisition for National Strategic Projects

Abstract

Land acquisition for National Strategic Projects (PSN) creates a legal tension between the State's interest in accelerating national development and the need to protect community land rights. This study examines the regulatory framework governing land acquisition for National Strategic Projects and the legal protection afforded to community land rights under Indonesian positive law. It employs normative legal research using library-based research and a statutory approach, with the analysis grounded in Gustav Radbruch's Theory of Legal Certainty and Philipus M. Hadjon's Theory of Legal Protection. The findings show that the regulatory framework, comprising the 1945 Constitution, the Basic Agrarian Law, Law Number 2 of 2012, and Government Regulation Number 19 of 2021 as amended by Government Regulation Number 39 of 2023, provides a legal basis for land acquisition while constraining the exercise of State authority through requirements of legal certainty and the protection of community rights. Legal protection operates preventively through information disclosure, participation, identification, inventory, and deliberation, and repressively through objection and dispute-resolution mechanisms. The novelty of this study lies in conceptualizing the relationship between accelerated development and multilayered legal protection of community land rights in the implementation of National Strategic Projects.