God in Indonesia’s Environmental Constitutionalism: An Untapped Resource in Times of (Climate) Change?

Indonesia, an archipelagic nation-state, faces multiple environmental challenges, including climate change. In the search for solutions in public law, the significance of religion in Indonesian constitutional jurisprudence and politics led to the realisation that constitutional arguments can be made on the basis of religion to enforce environmental rights and duties – a phenomenon already observed in other Muslim-majority countries. This paper thus proposes the crafting of (1) practicable arguments based on the right to religious freedom and a ‘religious values’ exception to the exercise of constitutional rights under the Indonesian Constitution, and (2) a normative argument of an ‘eco-theology’ presumption in Indonesian constitutionalism. Thereafter, the paper evaluates these arguments’ plausibility in light of existing (and comprehensive) legal frameworks, complex realities surrounding religion-state relations, and the praxis of Islamic environmental law in Indonesia.