TERM OF REFERENCE 4th INCOLS

TERMS OF REFERENCE

4^th  INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LAW STUDIES

“Equity, Social Justice and the Rule of Law across the Sustainable Development Goals”

A. NAME OF EVENT

4^th International Conference on Law Studies “Customary Law towards Nations”

B. BACKGROUND

Since 2019, there have been 193 countries signed up as the member states of the United Nations and only 2 countries registered as United Nation observers. Therefore, based on the data, we can conclude that these societies are composed of diverse ethnic, rules of law and social aspects. Moreover, as the evolution of technology and communication worldwide, the civilization is forced to be more diverse which establishes certain ethical concepts of equity and social justice. This issue impacts the huge number of differentials which lead to a certain number of disagreements along with conflicts that occur in the societies. As a result of diverse and disagreements within nations and civil societies, based on the United Nation data In 2019,  357 killings and 30 enforced disappearances of human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists has occurred in 47 countries.

Disputes, conflicts as well as the limited approach of justice are forms of threats to sustainable development goals. Moreover, lack of approaching justice is able to lead certain conflicts which are concerned to be unresolved and as a result, peace and justice are not enforced. In order to opine to that statement, The United Nation of General Assembly or UNGA has recognized that social development and social justice are necessary in order to achieve and support peace and security within nations around the globe. Therefore, UNGA urges all member states to not remain in any absence of equity, social justice and rules of law in order to manage and strengthen peace and security to respect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Equity, social justice and inclusive rules of law are needed to achieve peaceful and inclusive societies in promoting sustainable living worldwide. Based on the United Nation’s past SDGs, it is important that all stakeholders, such as but not limited to governments, civil societies and communities, work together in order to implement inclusive and also continuing solutions to enforce justice, equity and equality.

Italy’s former Minister of Labor and Social Policies, noted that an expected decline in global growth presaged a spike not only in poverty of income, but also in poverty of opportunities and justice. He emphasized the need to harness the universal nature of the SDGs across geographical and thematic borders in order to stem the threat of rising inequality. “The challenge we have,” Mr Giovannini said, “is not only for emerging or developing countries, but it is also relevant for developed countries. This is why I think it was a great choice to have SDGs as universal goals – because more and more countries will be facing problems, but also, I hope, solutions will be shared by these countries.”

Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), highlighted the role of the rule of law in fostering inclusivity – an essential prerequisite to both peace and development. “States and laws,” she said, “should empower rather than subdue, free rather than confine, and organize diversity rather than impose uniformity… Only laws that protect the human rights of all – that are both just and perceived to be just – can ensure stability, achieve prosperity, and unleash the potential of all members of society for the common good.”

Islamic and Customary Law’s Perspectives in SDGs Agenda

The Islamic Law perspective has a long history of harmonization with Indonesian customary law. It is important to understand the continuity of both collaboration in establishing a robust indigenous national community in Indonesia and other nations all over the world. Related to the plurality of customs and religion prevailing in Indonesia. It is natural that customary law originating from the custom of this society is then influenced by religious law as the religion of the people of Indonesia. Every customary law rule arises, develops, and then disappears with the emergence of a new custom. In contrast to the Islamic law that has increased its resistance to change, but resistance has not been as great as might be supposed.

For the purpose of the Sustainable development goals, either Islamic Law or Customary Law, in addition, to significantly reducing violence and related death rates everywhere it also teaches about protecting children from all forms of violence against children, including all corporal punishment, harmful traditional practices, and so-called honor crimes, sexual violence, and torture and other cruel. Trafficking in children is a type of corruption on Earth because it turns human beings, who have been honored by God, into things that can be bought and sold. Both Islamic Law and Customary Law stand firmly against deviant sexual practices to preserve the dignity and innocence of childhood stolen by sexual exploitation. Such assaults deny children’s basic human dignity because they are made into tools or games for those whose hearts are empty of a sense of humanity, virtue, and shame. The prophet (PBUH) said, “A Muslim is one from whose tongue and hands the other Muslims are secure and a believer is one from whom the people’s lives and wealth are safe.” The CDC shows the fact that a minimum of 50% of children in Asia, Africa, and Northern America experienced past-year violence. Over half of all children in the world, 1 billion children ages 2-17 experience violence every year.

Based on the 16.7 targets from the 2030 Sustainable Agenda, regarding decision making both Islamic Law and Customary Law doing the decision-making through mutual consultation engaged inclusive participation from all the members, so no one will be left behind and all the members can share their opinions or ideas throughout the consultation. For example, in contrast to state communities where decision-making is mostly done by voting, indigenous people and Muslims are usually conducting a consultation to reach a consensus. The most important thing is no one will feel dissatisfied with the decisions since it is made out of the consultation and on every member’s agreement. On top of that, it also increased the response of all members in any discussion of decision-making. By doing that method of decision making, both Islamic Law and Customary Law are trying to develop effective, accountable, and transparent institutions as a consequence of involving all members in every decision-making process.

In short, to establish a robust indigenous and Muslim national community become safer, ensure equal access to justice for all, and build effective, Islamic Law and Customary Law as it may be the media to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, accountable, and inclusive establishment to bring it on.

Public and Crime Law’s Perspectives in SDGs Agenda

Significant rise trend indigenous people criminalization is worth to be discussed. Law enforcement towards indigenous people is a topic that deserves to be discussed, because it does not only speak about the certainty of law yet also access to justice. There are so many dimensions to consider before it is synthesized in law instruments, including but not limited to social conditions, national public health preparedness, etc.  The regulations itself must not give any possibilities for gray areas.

In order to reach the Sustainable development goals, all societies should be able to access their needs and rights. Moreover, every single nation should create certain policies and suitable solutions to provide rights fulfillment along with providing safety or protections for their citizens such as but not limited to public law and crime law. As a result, people are not going to have cause to fear for their personal safety and the safety of their possessions. Aside from that, Security and justice define how to achieve improvements in order to reduce poverty, reversing inequality and enhancing effective governance. Both must be a crucial part of any global development agenda.

Referring to the 16.2 targets from 2030 Sustainable Agenda, in order to reach sustainability, abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children should be abolished. This issue is derived from UNICEF’s past data, which shows 1 billion children in the age of 2 to 17, have experienced all forms of physical, sexual, or emotional violence. However, regardless of their circumstances and status, all children have the right to be protected from any form of violence, exploitation and abuse. Child protection systems help children access vital social services and fair justice systems. Moreover, based on UNICEF’s past report, around 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020. However, this number is escalated due to the impact of COVID-19. As a result, this issue can be impacted to extreme bodily and mental harm, and even this issue can lead to multiple deaths. In addition, this issue also eliminates children’s fundamental rights and threatens their futures. Indeed, this concern contradicted the 16.2 target of the sustainable development goals.

Historically, Europe and Asia are notorious for their international rings of smugglers, jewel thieves, and drug traffickers which are categorized as centuries-old criminal organizations, organized criminal activities that particularly flourished in the 20th century. In order to satisfy the 2030 Sustainable Development goals, organized crime should be abolished by including all stakeholders within nations to build certain solutions and strong strategies to solve this issue. In acknowledging the organized crime activities, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime or also known as UNODC has significantly promoted several effective responses in South Asia by facilitating the implementation of the applicable and inclusive conventions at normative and operational levels. Furthermore, UNODC aspires to support and promote all Member States in order to enhance the capacities of each member states law enforcement entities to prevent and also address transnational organized crime and illicit trafficking.

Therefore, developing an effective, accountable and transparent institution at all levels are required in order to provide certain actions and implementation in promoting the rule of law at the national and international levels in order to ensure equal access to justice for all. These actions are expected to be able to maintain certain crime, especially in the aspect of public and crime law.

Private Law, Economic and Technological aspects’ perspectives in SDGs Agenda

Private law defined as a particular part of a civil law legal system, which is also the part of the jus commune that involves several relationships between individuals, such as the law of contracts and torts (as it is called in the common law), and the law of obligations (as it is called in civil legal systems). Moreover, private law is distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between both natural and artificial persons (i.e., organizations) along with the state, including regulatory statutes, penal law and other law aspects that affect the public order. In general terms, private law involves interactions between private individuals, whereas public law involves interrelations between the state and the general population.

As mentioned in 3rd of November 2017,  during the launch of a report on business and SDG 16 by various business leaders, governments, UN agencies, civil society and academia, the report discussed the relevance of SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) to the private sector and the link between peace and the development agenda. Participants noted that companies are able to help in achieving the particular SDG 16 Goal by preventing any kinds of corruption and creating significant conditions that will lead to other points in the current goal, inclusive decision-making and the rule of law quality improvement that enhance in creating applicable conditions for corporate social responsibility, good governance and transparency.

In the point of view of the economic aspect, corruption deals with the misuse of public power for private benefit and its economic impact on society. Economies that are afflicted by a high level of corruption are not capable of prospering as fully as those with a low level of corruption. Also, economies that are corrupted are not able to function properly since the natural laws of the economy can not function freely.

Corruption has been around for a very long time and will be around in the future unless governments can figure out effective ways to combat the issue. Based on Paolo Mauro’s writings on The Economic Issues No. 6, the root causes of corruption can be described in several sources, such as trade restrictions; governments’ subsidies; price controls; multiple exchange rate practices and foreign exchange allocation schemes; low wages in the civil services; natural resource endowments; and sociological factors. As a consequence, corruption, for instance, leads to an inefficient allocation of resources, poor education, and healthcare, or the presence of a shadow economy, a kind of economy that includes illegal activities as well as unreported income from the production of legal goods and services for which taxes should be paid, but are not. Hence, the things affected by corruption explained above can potentially lead to several issues that are able to impact the other SDGs goals.

In the case of providing legal identity universally for all, including birth registration by the year of 2030, on November 2015 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had launched a ten-year campaign to end statelessness by 2024, called the #IBelong campaign, including a ten-point global action plan, with universal birth registration as Action 7. While birth registration in itself does not confer nationality, and is usually not legally proof of nationality, the official record of the place and date of birth and identity of the parents of the child provides critical evidence of the facts that enable the child to assert the right to nationality in one or more states. In principle, SDG Target 16.9 should provide a significant boost to the achievement of UNHCR’s campaign, especially the ambition to end statelessness at birth.

In all available cases, ensuring that a child has the right to acquire a nationality will require legal reform and administrative procedures to implement that right in practice. Effective legal protection against statelessness in practice almost always involves providing general legal rights to acquire nationality based on birth and/or residence in a country, given the difficulties of proving statelessness of the child or parent. Efforts to register a child — or adult — with another form of legal status (including the status of a stateless person) and a document to match, may be helpful as an interim measure over the short term.

In conclusion, based on the data provided above all stakeholders should gather and establish a detailed resolution and implementation regarding the embodiment of SDG 16’s grand agenda’s values. These implementations should be addressed especially in both urban and rural areas, with the help of all stakeholders at national levels by providing guidance of national development plans. These actions should also review existing policies in order to reach the SDG 16 targets and also assess the loopholes of the issues, especially regarding private law, economy, and technological aspects.

C. PURPOSE

The primary aim of holding this international conference is to provide information on law enforcement in order to reach the 2030 sustainable development goals as well as the experiences and comparisons in the global context. Moreover, this conference aims at providing an excellent international platform for the academicians, researchers and budding students around the world to share and measure their research findings in order to find international linkage for future collaborations.

The objectives of carrying out this activity include:

General Context:

1. As a place for meetings and information exchange between stakeholders and researchers/academicas;
2. As a means of socializing the level of understanding of society/academics in dealing with cross-border problems;
3. Develop research networks and other collaborations in the field of law.

Specific Context:

1. To give recommendations to related stakeholders and/or policymakers on integrated solutions to public health and international law;
2. To identify any pitfall on economic regulations and procedural law that may raise any skepticism on legal certainty, legal utility and justice;
3. To achieve a robust explanation on how law enforcement become the main convalescence to revive in pandemic situation;

To propose any significant suggestion on prevailing regulation regarding Sustainable development goals that might give any disparity between law in the book and law in the society;

D. BENEFIT

The expected benefits of this activity are the rise of public and academic understanding of law enforcement in the era of the Covid-19 as well as the experiences and comparisons in the Global Context. At last, the paper is going to be published in international journals which will be able to increase the number of academic publications and develop law studies. Moreover, the Organizing Committee also encourages academics to submit cross-disciplinary research in the above areas in order to develop multi-perspective and rich discussion that may bring more comprehensive understanding.

E. TIME AND PLACE

1. International Conference

Day        : Monday

Date       : 4^th of April 2022

Time      : 09.00 – 12.00 (GMT+7)

2. Paper Presentation

Day        : Tuesday

Date       : 5^th of April 2022

Time      : 09.00 – 12.00 (GMT+7)

3. Place

Platform          : Zoom Meeting

F. KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Opening Speech:

1. Marty Natalegawa, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Speakers:

2. Professor Aria Nakisa, Professor at Harvard University;
3. Professor Tim Lindsey, Professor at University of Melbourne and Director of The Center for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS) (University of Melbourne);
4. Suzanne Young, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice (University of Leeds-United Kingdom);
5. Abdul Halim, M.Ag. (Lecturer of FH UPNVJ);
6. Prof. Datin Norbani Mohamed Nazeri (UM-Malaysia);
7. Adriaan Bedner (Van Vollenhoven Institute-Netherlands);
8. Dr. Diani Sadiawati, S.H., L.L.M.

Moderator:

1. Aisha Kusumasomantri

G. OUTPUT

Indonesian Journal of Social and Environmental Issues, Veteran Law Review, and Proceedings.

H. PARTICIPANTS

1. University Students from any majors in Asia;
2. Lecturers from any majors in Asia;
3. Researcher and Legal Practitioners in Asia;
4. Non-Government Organization.

I. ORGANIZER

Faculty of Law Universitas Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Jakarta.