Forest Fires of Indonesia: State Responsibility and International Liability

Abstract

During the last few months of 1997, vast areas of South-east Asia were choked by air pollution caused by smoke arising from massive forest fires in Indonesia. Thick smoke blanketed not only Indonesian territory, but significant transboundary pollution was also caused to several neighbouring States, primarily Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore.1The problem was caused largely by the indiscriminate use of fire in the clearing of land by large-scale plantation owners and timber concessionaires on Indonesian territory. Land-clearing by government-sponsored transmigration programmes also involved significant burning. To lesser extents, small-scale “slash-and-burn” agricultural practices were implicated as well.2The problem was exacerbated by the onset of severe droughts associated with the El Nino climatic phenomenon and the presence of combustible peat bogs in several parts of the sprawling Indonesian archipelago.