Reconstructing Indonesia's Agricultural Intellectual Property Rights Regime for Justice and Sustainability

Nina Nurani; Apriwandi; Hafied Noor Bagja

doi:10.23969/litigasi.v26i2.54489

Authors

Nina Nurani Universitas Widyatama
Apriwandi Universitas Widyatama
Hafied Noor Bagja Universitas Widyatama

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23969/litigasi.v26i2.54489

Keywords:

Intellectual Property Right Regime, Agricultural Intellectual Property Rights, Plant Variety Protection, Farmers' Rights, Sustainable Agricultural Development

Abstract

Indonesia's agricultural intellectual property rights (IPR) regime plays a strategic role in promoting agricultural innovation and economic development; however, concerns remain regarding the unequal distribution of legal protection, opportunities, and benefits between plant breeders and farmers. This study examines the construction of Indonesia's agricultural IPR regime, identifies its distributive justice issues, and reconstructs the regime using John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness and the Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) approach. The study employs normative legal research with legal, conceptual, philosophical, comparative, and interpretive approaches. The findings indicate that the current regime provides strong protection for breeders' rights through exclusive rights, licensing, certification, and enforcement mechanisms. In contrast, farmers' rights remain limited and largely positioned as exceptions rather than independent rights. The study further finds structural inequalities in access to legal protection, corporate dominance in innovation governance, weak benefit-sharing mechanisms, and limited recognition of community-based innovation. Consequently, the regime supports innovation incentives, investment, and seed industry development, but has not fully achieved distributive justice, inclusive economic development, or sustainable agricultural development. This study is limited by its normative scope and does not empirically assess the socioeconomic impacts of the regime. The findings suggest the need for legal reforms that strengthen farmers' rights, expand inclusive access mechanisms, institutionalise equitable benefit sharing, and integrate AIS-based governance. The study's originality lies in integrating Rawlsian distributive justice with AIS to formulate a model for reconstructing agricultural IPR that balances innovation protection, social justice, and sustainability.

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