22 October 2026
The Legal Structure of the Incumbency Advantage
Imagine that you intend to run for president of the Republic, governor of a state, or mayor of a municipality. During the campaign, you can choose to run either as an ordinary candidate or as the current holder of the office you seek. Which option would you choose? The answer is intuitive: your chances of success are usually greater if you are running for reelection. This incumbency advantage is a well-known phenomenon. Less well known is the way electoral rules can contribute to mitigating or amplifying such an advantage. Recent presidential elections in Brazil and judicial decisions illustrate how a country’s legal structure interacts with the electoral advantage incumbents enjoy. Continue reading >>
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16 October 2026
The Constitution Releases Its Children
The shock over the shift to the right in the first round of the Brazilian elections on October 4th runs deep. It is felt not only by supporters of the current incumbent, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his broad coalition, but also by all those who had hoped, Brazil would defy the crisis of liberal democracy and remain a bulwark of democratic constitutionalism. Even if there remains a glimmer of hope that the return of Bolsonarism to the presidency during the runoff on October 25 can still be held off, it is clear already after the first round that a hard right populism will dominate the Brazilian Congress and most of its state governments – and, hence, the baselines of Brazilian politics –, even if Lula should, in the end, be re-elected by a whisker. Continue reading >>
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15 October 2026
The Extractive State: Or, Peter Thiel in Argentina
Much of what lies ahead for Brazil, should Bolsonaro defeat Lula in the second round, can be studied in Argentina. In Thiel’s own words, his visits to Argentina are a journey to the end of the world – a perfect spot to bunker up in the event of an Apocalypse. By working hand in hand with the self-declared “anarcho-libertarian” president, Javier Milei, Argentina could experiment with its legal, political and economic system to the benefit of Silicon Valley and finance capitalists, while also taking the international far-right project to new heights. Continue reading >>
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11 October 2026
Carbon Majors in Brazilian Courts
On October 9, 2026, Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office and a nonprofit environmental association, Instituto Preservar, sued Shell Brasil Petróleo Ltda. for damages caused by the April and May 2024 floods in my home state of Rio Grande do Sul. The filing now places Brazil among the jurisdictions where public enforcers sue fossil fuel producers, which the litigation over the 2024 floods had not previously included. It also offers a concrete setting for the interplay between the causal nexus of Brazilian environmental liability and the attribution of a climate disaster to an emitter. Continue reading >>
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10 September 2026
A Game of Shadows
Terrorists or not? The U.S. designation of Brazil’s two largest criminal organizations has reignited a debate over what makes an actor “terrorist” under Brazilian law. In Brazil, however, the law has been moving in a different direction: the consequences once tied to the terrorism label increasingly apply without it. Continue reading >>
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16 July 2026
The Past is Never Past
On June 11, 2026, the German automotive company Volkswagen was convicted in four different lawsuits by the Brazilian Labor Court for reducing people to slavery in the Brazilian Amazon. While this judgment marks the company’s second round of convictions for enslavement within the Amazonian state of Pará, it stands out as a historic first in the form of individual reparations for corporate crimes committed nearly fifty years ago. This opens the way for a new era of reckoning with several other companies that committed similar crimes in the past and to this day have never been brought to justice. Continue reading >>
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29 May 2026
The Problem Is Not Politicization
When judicial nominations fail, the instinct is to blame politicization. But the collapse of Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf's candidacy for the German Federal Constitutional Court and the historic Senate rejection of Jorge Messias for Brazil's Supreme Court point to a different diagnosis. The problem did not lie in politics as such – but in the Brazilian intuition of “politicagem”: the subordination of judicial selection to short-term electoral performance. Continue reading >>
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16 April 2026
When Courts Turn Into Justices
The Brazilian Supreme Federal Court is currently facing the most severe crisis of judicial governance in its democratic history: the consolidation of individualized judicial power at the expense of collegiality. The recent Banco Master scandal exposes how conflicts of interest, opaque decision-making, and the concentration of authority in individual justices can erode the institutional foundations of a constitutional court. India experienced a very similar crisis back in 2018. The Indian episode offers a comparative mirror of remarkable clarity for understanding what is now unfolding in Brazil. Continue reading >>
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22 December 2025
Bolsonaro’s Quasi-Amnesty
After the Brazilian Supreme Court convicted Bolsonaro and other military figures for their role in the January 2023 coup attempt, many saw this as a positive example for the world. Justice Moraes, the rapporteur and central figure in Bolsonaro’s prosecution, hailed these developments as a “triple victory”: for the judiciary, which “did not yield to threats”; for national sovereignty; and for democracy. Last week, however, Congress approved the so-called Dosimetry Bill, which allows for a significant reduction in sentences for those convicted. In light of the Bill, such declarations of triumph warrant reconsideration. Continue reading >>
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23 September 2025
The Realm of Good Intentions
A recent decision by a Brazilian labour court fined Volkswagen do Brasil approximately US$ 30 million to be paid into a State fund to combat slave labour. This decision was praised on Verfassungsblog by Danielle Pamplona and Hartmut Rank (“historic, consistent, and necessary”). However, I would like to put forward an alternative view, as I believe the decision has two flaws: it does not comply with Brazilian law and lacks practical utility. Continue reading >>
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