The discussion of Sharpening the Concept of the Academic Paper for the Draft Law on Foreign Relations was featuring one of the lecturer from Department of International Law from Faculty of Law UGM, which was Prof. Dr. Agustinus Supriyanto, S.H., M.Si. As one of the speakers and international law expert, Prof. Agustinus Supriyanto explained about the steps that can be taken by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in strengthening the diplomatic relations with other countries.
This event was attended by 12 participants raised the theme "Strengthening the Foreign Affairs in Draft Bill on International Relation”. The discussion took place in Sekar Jagad Room, MM UGM Building, Colombo St. 1, Karangmalang, Sleman, DIY on Friday (23/8/2024).
In this discussion, Dr. Agustinus Supriyanto explained about the juridical ground for national regulation related to foreign relationship such as Law Number 39 Year 1999 concerning Foreign Affairs. Aside from that, he also explained about the international regulations such as The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The juridical ground that was delivered beforehand was bridging the discussion for foreign representatives or well-known as diplomat.
Diplomat discussion consisted of the classification for the foreign representatives and the diplomatic mission assignment including the ad hoc ambassadorial mission carried out by an ambassador-at-large. Prof. Agustinus Supriyanto also explained about the general explanation, background and the objectives of ad hoc ambassadorial mission for Indonesia.
On the next session, he provided the benchmarking by the other states that successfully have carried out the ad hoc diplomacy to the fullest. He also inserted the recommendations for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic Indonesia from the presented benchmark. One of the example of the benchmarking was from Mexico dan had opened 50 consular offices in the US and followed with the strengthening recommendations and increasing the number of consular office at the countries where majority of Indonesian diaspora are located.
The final topic discussed in the session was the urgency of digital diplomacy. This issue was highlighted by the growing spread of hoaxes and fake news, which may affect harmony and stability within a country.
Prof. Agustins Supriyanto argued that digital diplomacy is crucial to develop in the cooperation framework between countries in preventing the fundamentalism & radicalism perspective from other countries for the other cooperations between institutions.
Before the last session of the discussion, he gave a recommendation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic Indonesia to strengthen the technical in digital field for each of the Indonesia’s Representatives. This discussion also ended with the question and answer session and the expectations for the discussion, along with the closing remarks from the speakers.
Author : Bikry Fathonah
Editor: Public Relations
