The Indonesian state has moved slowly and inconsistently to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the main international standard related to corporate human rights abuses. It has developed a national strategy on business and human rights and incorporated some elements of the UNGPs into a separate national action plan on human rights. But, otherwise, it has done little to develop or implement a national regulatory framework for BHR outside the fisheries sector where it has provided for a BHR certification scheme, albeit with little practical impact. This paper explains this response, drawing on a critical political economy framework that emphasises the role of domestic political struggles over wealth and power and the agency of individual political leaders in determining state action.