Abstract:
This research focuses on Indonesia European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA) negotiation which is still an ongoing process. Ideally, the Free Trade Agreement between Indonesia and the EU should be based on mutual gain and sustainable principles, not merely serving states’ economic interests. Therefore, IEU CEPA includes trade and sustainable development agenda to ensure that free trade will not cause negative impacts on labour and environment. To date, however, the discussion about the implementation of international labour standards has been a side agenda of the negotiations, whereas the Palm Oil issue and its impact on the environment seems to be brought up in the negotiation more frequently. If the Indonesian Government continues to focus more on lobbying the European Union representatives on the palm oil issue, or in other words focusing more on the trade and investment aspects of the negotiation, it may worsen the implementation of labour standards and preservation of the environment in Indonesia. Therefore, this research aims to answer the question: How environment and labour standards are negotiatied within the IEU-CEPA negotiations on Trade and Sustainable Development Chapter? Since the negotiations are still going on, this research is aimed more at mapping the responses of stakeholders involved toward the negotiations and analyzing the potential impacts on international labour standards implementation in Indonesia. The mapping of the stakeholders and their responses during the negotiations is important since it may serve as an instrument to identify and minimize potential conflicts of interests that might surface after the implementation of IEU-CEPA. This research used qualitative approach and utilize data obtained through interview and documents collection.
