Although the Republic of Indonesia's constitution recognizes the existence of indigenous peoples and their original rights, what happened in the following period was precisely the denial and / or violation of the rights of indigenous peoples (Zakaria, 2000). The 1998 reforms seemed to bring the wind of change. That recognition is increasingly confirmed through Article 18B paragraph (2) and two other articles. After that, there were also 5 Decisions of the Constitutional Court which confirmed that recognition.

Even so, for example, the total area of ​​customary forests that have been officially recognized has not yet reached 25,000 ha. In fact, the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) claims that there are at least 40 million ha. What happened?

So far there have been several studies that show that this has happened because of the weak commitment and institutional capacity of the existing policy implementers. Unlike the argument, this paper shows the main problem lies in the logic of law itself. The legal logic used is trapped in the logic of positivism in understanding customary law that growing and developing since the colonial period, so that it is unable to accommodate social changes that are necessarily faced by indigenous communities.

At the end of the article the author voiced the need for a breakthrough in building a new legal framework / logic that would be used to regulate the recognition of indigenous peoples' rights as mandated by the constitution. Mainly by using socio-anthropological understanding, so that the constitutional mandate can be fulfilled more optimally. ***