ABSTRACT
This chapter will discuss in specific terms the experience of conflict of law in the Indonesian archipelago during the Dutch colonial era. The choice of this focus is basically dictated by the historical fact of the long and continual encounter between the legal traditions of the pre-colonial indigenous community and the civil law tradition brought by the Dutch colonizers. Whether dated from the outset of economic subjugation by the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) in the early sixteenth century or from the start of direct colonial rule by the Netherlands in the early nineteenth century, the era of Dutch colonialism can be regarded as the one richest in examples of the legal encounter between Western traditions and those existing in the native society. For although other European states did in fact maintain a colonial presence in the archipelago, resulting to some extent also in legal encounters, the most persistent meeting of legal traditions occurred between the Dutch civil law tradition, on the one hand, and the adat and Islamic law traditions of the indigenous community, on the other. Limiting attention to the Dutch era at this stage is also justified by the fact of its later impact on the encounter of legal traditions in independent Indonesia. The discussion therefore will be devoted mainly to understanding the Dutch colonial response when faced with the reality of legal pluralism in the archipelago. This is accomplished by analyzing some of the Dutch policies and regulations implemented with respect to indigenous laws and institutions, as well as by recognizing the implicit attempts at conflict resolution during the earliest encounters. It is therefore preferable that the discussion should begin with a general overview of the discourse of law and colonialism, with particular reference to the European legal theories used to justify colonial policy.
