Japan and Indonesia has already worked together to realize the NPP plan in Indonesia for decades. As a developed and democratic country hailed by Indonesian government officials, Japan has a good opportunity to help the progress of democracy of Indonesia. Though it is very difficult to campaign against the export of NPP to Indonesia, at least it can be expected that while exporting its technology, Japanese government should impose some requirements such as those implemented in Japan.

As we know, Indonesia is still in transition to a democratic government. In political field, people enjoy the highest stage of public participation by having direct elections at either local or national level. However, in terms of nuclear issue, the government does not recognize the right of its people to participate in the nuclear power decision-making. In contrast, Japanese people can exercise a referendum in Maki city to decide on whether or not to construct such NPP. Thus, it is not fair if Japan sells its NPP by closing its eyes on the conditions of the importer country, i.e. Indonesia, which discouraging the public participation in its legislation let alone in practice.

To understand more about what rights are secured and enjoyed by the Japanese and Indonesian people in participating in the nuclear decision-making, a research on the legal rights should be carried out. The question of what legal rights do the Japanese public have and how do they exercise such rights in participating in the nuclear decision-making that the Indonesian people don't have should be answered.

Then the data on both Japanese and Indonesian rules and regulations in relation to the rights of the public to participate in nuclear decision-making is needed. Furthermore, it is important to know the implementation of such regulation by the public in general, including the referendum in Maki city. Fortunately, such research on the Indonesian nuclear law has ever been carried out for my thesis a couple of years ago. One of the results of the research suggested that the right of the public to participate in the nuclear decision-making is not clearly provided in the Nuclear Act.

The research will help the Indonesian people understand more about their rights to participate in the nuclear decision-making. Besides, such research will open the eyes of the Indonesian public on having litigation as another method to act against the NPP plan. And finally, the research can encourage the public to start asking for some nuclear-related information which remain a mystery, such as the feasibility study conducted by Newjec of Japan in the 1990s.

Besides using the results of the research as important materials in having a judicial review of the Indonesian Nuclear Act before the Constitutional Court, the results of the research should also be circulated widely among the organizations working against the nuclear power issues either in Indonesia or abroad. In international level, the results of the research may not only be used as a material for a joint-campaign with the fellow organizations in Japan, but also with other relatively similar situation in the Southeast Asia such as Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia or Vietnam. In doing so, the Japanese at least help the progress of democracy in the region. [Sep. 2009]