Dispute cases that occur in the South China Sea region are one of the most complicated cases of territorial disputes that have ever occurred in the Southeast Asia region. This dispute not only involved several parties at once, namely Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Vietnam but also included several issues related to overlapping territorial claims and the withdrawal of sea boundaries in the region. Although at present the dispute in the South China Sea is relatively peaceful, the fact that the dispute has not been resolved completely enables the occurrence of frictions or even military confrontation in the future. Even if we look at the trends that have occurred over the past five years, the tension that arises between the disputing parties shows a higher level than in the previous decade. Therefore it is very necessary for a clear peace settlement framework to avoid the situation worsening in the future.

Nonetheless, the peaceful solution approach that has been pursued so far has not been able to resolve the dispute that has existed since four decades ago. On first track diplomacy, the regional approach by ASEAN, despite having successfully agreed to the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which was quite successful in managing disputes, this approach could not support the settlement. ongoing disputes. In addition to the difficulties in mediating conflicts, as some ASEAN members are also disputing parties, regional approaches in the ASEAN region are hampered by several other factors, such as the division of member countries that want ASEAN’s role in resolving the conflict and countries that want bilateral settlement as initiated by China. At the other extreme on the level of first track diplomacy, the bilateralism approach initiated by China also has limitations. First and foremost, the strategy that tends to lead to “devide et impera” for countries in this region will not be in China’s interest in the long run. Secondly, the increasingly assertive policies of China in this dispute will be counterproductive with the bilateral approach.

Reflecting on the limitations of first track diplomacy carried out by ASEAN and China, a sustainable peaceful settlement approach, when referring to the theory of multi track dilomacy, will be more likely to be achieved if it involves and empowers other potentials at all levels of existing diplomacy. In this case, second track diplomacy is one of the potentials that need to be explored to support and cover the limitations of first track diplomacy. The workshop “Managing the Potential of Conflicts in the South China Sea” initiated by Indonesia is one example of the second track diplomacy that has been carried out so far and has the potential to support sustainable dispute resolution carried out on first track diplomacy. At least there are two important things that are the reasons for the second track diplomacy effort in resolving this conflict. First, in terms of diplomacy and as always emphasized in this workshop that informal track second diplomacy provides an opportunity for disputing parties to be able to be present in personal capacity and express their opinions more openly without any pressure as happened in first track diplomacy. The second reason for the importance of this workshop as a potential supporter of sustainable peaceful dispute resolution is related to Indonesia itself as the host country. In addition to the factors that Indonesia has so far not been part of the disputing parties that make its position as a mediator more acceptable to all parties, Indonesia is also known as a normative leader in the region which is often trusted to mediate disputes.

Based on the facts and considerations above, this study aims to look at the mechanism of management and resolution of the South China Sea dispute that Indonesia has conducted on the second track diplomacy, mainly through the Workshop on Managing the Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea (WMPC-SCS) carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s Research and Development Policy (BPPK) for the past 24 years. More specifically, this research will try to answer two main questions, namely how the second track diplomacy mechanism that has been implemented by Indonesia through the WMP-SCS so far, and how the effectiveness of the diplomacy.

This research is a part of superior research of college entitled “Cassava for Food Sovereignty: Collaborative Study” conducted by 10 (ten) study centers under Institute of Research and Community Service (LPPM) Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) Yogyakarta. This collaborative research started from the desire to develop the spirit of mutual cooperation studying food security and energy sovereignty, particularly those related to cassava as an alternative food for the sake of national food security. Furthermore, this collaborative research is expected to contribute comprehensively based on the field of knowledge of each study center for the Indonesian nation at large and the government in particular in the form of policy recommendations related to cassava and food security in Indonesia.

As a center for social-oriented studies in Southeast Asia, the Center for Southeast Asian Social Studies (PSSAT) focuses this cassava research on comparative studies of cassava management as a food alternative in Thailand and Vietnam, two countries currently occupying the top position of cassava exporters at the level world. This research departs from the simple notion that when a country succeeds in becoming the world’s largest exporter, of course the country has already succeeded in fulfilling its own domestic food needs. Furthermore, by studying food security schemes in these countries, researchers will be able to formulate policy recommendations to the Indonesian government on food security, particularly those related to cassava as food commodities alternative.01

This study was conducted to report on data collection on human rights violations in Southeast Asia that occurred throughout 2010. The countries that are the focus of research are Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. This research seeks to emphasize the importance of the issue of human rights violations for the democratization process in Southeast Asia. Human rights violations are important to note because the high – low levels of human rights violations are often closely related to the quality of a country ‘s democracy. Certainly democracy is a far more complicated issue than the extent of human rights abuses. However, it is not always the case that the implementation of human rights in a country is linear with the quality of democracy, but it is able to encourage democratization process in a more perfect form, because in this situation the public has more awareness about the fulfillment of their rights so they are able to participate in the process development of the country through the channeling of its aspirations. Thus, the data generated by this study may provide some sort of preliminary assessment of the course of democratization especially in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The same research report also provides a rough idea of the level of coercion and political exclusion in countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The main objective of this study is to find links between human rights violations with some important structural factors, namely economic prosperity, number and diversity of ethnic groups, levels of conflict and violence, and democracy. The four structural factors above are chosen not without reason. This linkage is important to discover and demonstrate that discussions of human rights abuses do not get caught up in discussions that overly emphasize formal legal aspects. It should be noted that this study is not ruling out the significance of the legal-formal dimension in examining human rights issues. Instead society is being encouraged to broaden the horizons of understanding by looking at and considering the more diverse and complex sociopolitical factors that have historically always had an impact on the level of human rights abuses in a country. This research is expected to give birth to several hypotheses-as arguably long-debated-that require further proof in explaining the causes of human rights violations.

The research was conducted by collecting data through the reporting of human rights violations in a number of national media covering print media in the form of daily newspaper Kompas and Tempo; and electronic media covering Kompas, the Jakarta Post, the Brunei Times, Borneo Bulletin, Brunei Pelita, Manila Times, Phnom Penh Post, the Star, Bangkok Post, Thanh Nien, Vientiane Times, Myanmar Times, Strait Times, BBC Pages, Human Rights Watch, Compassdirect, Amnesty International, RSF and Peacemakers.