The United States’ Citizen Suit Adoption Into The States With Different Legal Systems: Learning From Indonesia And The Philippines

Abstract

This paper demonstrates whether it is complex as Orücü argues for legal adoption between different legal systems. Through the functional approach, this study analyzes qualitatively the experiences of adopting the United States' citizen suit in Indonesia and the Philippines which have different legal histories and backgrounds. The result shows that it is not as complex as Orücü argues to adopt citizen suits from the U.S into the different legal system states. Indonesia adopts the citizen suit by adapting its benefits, function, and essential elements. Surprisingly, Indonesian judges make a moderate modification by broadening the citizen suit's benefits to enforce other public interest issues than environment law, such as education rights, labor rights, and other public services rights cases. Meanwhile, the Philippines, which is having the U.S colonization background, tend to follow the U.S citizen regime originally, with an adaption of the court jurisdiction aspect. The result valuable to support other legal adoption experiences between different legal systems. However, it is better to combine the functional approach in studying the U.S. citizen suit in the context to adopt it with the other techniques, such as legal culture and economics approach to make the adoption process functionally, culturally, and economically being accepted and work well.