Public Regulation and People’s Welfare Orientations of Indonesia’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Mining Industry

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an important topic in the intersections between businesses and the society, being used to address the negative effects of corporate and business activities on the society and environment. Regardless of the variants of its definition and forms, CSR has been used as a form of regulation in many countries including Indonesia. Indonesia’s mining industry has a unique CSR regulation in the sense that it is backed by sectoral mining regulations used to protect certain uniquely defined societal interests. Since Indonesia’s mining regulation prescribes certain manners of mineral production, mandatory CSR obligations have been created for industry players that will have to be read in the light of public regulation and people’s welfare orientations. This paper finds that the expansive use of CSR particularly in the mining regulatory framework will create implications for the international legal commitments undertaken by Indonesia including those under the World Trade Organization (WTO).