1st Edition

Defending Legal Freedoms in Indonesia The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and Cause Lawyering in an Age of Democratic Decline

By Tim Mann Copyright 2025
292 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

292 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

292 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Defending Legal Freedoms in Indonesia provides fresh insights into how cause lawyers navigate political and institutional change, by presenting and analysing the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), the oldest and most influential legal and human rights organisation in Indonesia. Based on rich ethnographic research, this book charts the developments of the organisation since its founding... Read more

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface and acknowledgements

Acronyms and abbreviations

Glossary

           

PART ONE: CAUSE LAWYERING AND THE BIRTH OF THE LEGAL AID MOVEMENT IN INDONESIA

 

Chapter 1: Introduction: Cause lawyering and democratic change

 

Chapter 2: The making of a ‘locomotive of democracy’: Cause lawyers under Soeharto’s New Order

 

 

PART TWO: CAUSE LAWYERING IN A TIME OF DEMOCRATIC REFORM AND REGRESSION

 

Democratic reform and regression: Introduction to Part Two

 

Chapter 3: Transitions and troubles: Challenges post-Soeharto

 

Chapter 4: Mobilising the law: New opportunities, new strategies

 

Chapter 5: Movement building: community organising and legal empowerment

 

Chapter 6: Accommodation and opposition: Engaging with the state

 

PART THREE: REVIVAL

 

Chapter 7: The ‘revival’ of structural legal aid and return as an oppositional force

 

Chapter 8: Conclusion

 

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Tim Mann is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) in the University of Copenhagen, Denmark

“Tim Mann’s Defending Legal Freedoms in Indonesia is an exciting new history and analysis of cause lawyering in Indonesia that sheds new light on challenges to and successes of the major cause lawyering movement there. It provides a framework for thinking about the rocky course of cause lawyering and public interest law more broadly in Asia and beyond, and will become a crucial text for academics and lawyers as they think about these important areas.”

-        Mark Sidel, Doyle-Bascom Professor of Law and Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison

“In this outstanding study, Timothy Mann brings alive the many dilemmas and obstacles members of Indonesia’s Legal Aid Institute have encountered when using the legal system to extend and defend democratic rights. As well as providing a definitive account of Indonesia’s most distinguished human rights organisation, Defending Legal Freedoms in Indonesia is packed with valuable insights for scholars and activists anywhere interested in democratic decline and how to resist it.”


- Edward Aspinall, Professor of Politics, Department of Political & Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs