Whose Carbon, Whose Benefit? Pancasila Social Justice and Community Benefit-Sharing in Indonesia's Forest Carbon Governance

Indonesia is rebuilding its forest carbon market at the same time as it accelerates the recognition of customary forests, yet the rules that decide who receives carbon revenue have received little legal scrutiny. This article asks whether Indonesia's emerging benefit-sharing arrangements meet the standard of social justice that the state's foundational philosophy, Pancasila, and the 1945 Constitution impose on the use of natural resources. It first translates three Pancasila principles (just and civilized humanity, deliberative democracy and social justice) into recognitional, procedural and distributive dimensions of justice, and operationalizes them through the four indicators of "the greatest prosperity of the people" developed by the Constitutional Court. It then applies the resulting standard to three instruments: Presidential Regulation No. 110 of 2025, the benefit-sharing plan of the East Kalimantan jurisdictional emission reductions program, and the project-based rules introduced by Forestry Minister Regulation No. 6 of 2026. The analysis finds that the jurisdictional program performs best on distribution and procedure, that project-based trading performs worst, and that all three tie access to benefits to formal recognition of customary rights, which covered about 345,000 hectares in October 2025 against a target of 1.4 million hectares by 2029. The article proposes six design principles, including a statutory community floor share and eligibility based on de facto stewardship, to close the gap between constitutional promise and carbon practice.