PRABOWO AND THE SHORTCOMINGS OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE

Abstract

On 9 July 2014, Joko Widodo became Indonesia’s seventh president, winning the election by around six percentage points. The man he defeated, Prabowo Subianto, is suspected of committing a range of human rights offences in Java in 1997–98. While Prabowo failed to win the presidency, his strong candidacy highlights the ongoing impunity for perpetrators of serious human rights violations in Indonesia. Despite a human rights court being legislated for in Indonesia, it is yet to prosecute past human rights abuses by state officials. This article explores Prabowo’s human rights abuses and how international criminal law has failed to achieve justice for these crimes. It concludes that Prabowo’s political rise threatens the aims of international criminal justice.