Semiotic Evidence and “Green” Victimology in Indonesian Environmental Criminal Law: Rebuilding Ecological Justice Through Law

Heru Siswanto; Yusriyadi; Muh. Afif Mahfud; Firdaus Arifin

doi:10.23969/litigasi.v26i2.42522

Authors

Heru Siswanto Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia.
Yusriyadi Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia.
Muh. Afif Mahfud Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia.
Firdaus Arifin Faculty of Law, Universitas Pasundan, Bandung, Indonesia.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23969/litigasi.v26i2.42522

Keywords:

Semiotics, Green Victimology, Ecological Justice, Environmental Criminal Law, Ecocide

Abstract

This article addresses a major gap in Indonesian environmental criminal law: ecological entities such as rivers, forests, and ecosystems are not clearly recognized as legal victims. As a result, translating ecological damage into legally comprehensible and admissible evidence remains difficult. While green victimology has broadened the idea of “victim” beyond human beings, and ecosemiotics shows that nature can “communicate” harm through observable material signs, these perspectives have rarely been integrated into doctrinal legal practice, particularly in Indonesia. Using normative legal research, this study combines statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches with semiotic theory. The materials examined include Indonesian environmental regulations, comparative jurisprudence on the rights of nature, ecocide scholarship, green victimology, and ecosemiotics. The article argues that ecological harm should not be treated merely as a technical failure to comply with administrative rules or as a human-centered loss. Instead, it should be understood as the victimization of ecological entities, including rivers, forests, wildlife, peatlands, and ecosystems as living systems. In this framework, semiotic analysis bridges natural signs and legal proof by identifying ecological indicators, supporting them through scientific verification, connecting them to legally recognized categories of harm, and applying interpretive safeguards against subjective reasoning. Ultimately, the study contributes to environmental criminal law by proposing a comprehensive reconstruction of ecological victimhood, clearer evidentiary standards for ecological signs, procedures for representing non-human victims, and restorative sanctions supporting ecological repair.

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