Lesley K. McAllister

Making law matter : environmental protection and legal institutions in Brazil

This reply to Professor Colin Crawfords review of my book, Making Law Matter: Environmental Protection and Legal Institutions in Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2008), assesses the state of the literature on enforcement and compliance with environmental regulation in developing countries. Among Latin American countries, Brazil has been the most innovative in building environmental enforcement capacity by empowering public prosecutors to file civil and criminal enforcement lawsuits. In addition to explaining my research findings on this enforcement approach, my reply sets forth areas for future research on environmental enforcement.

Public Prosecutors and Environmental Protection in Brazil

Since the passage of the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988, the public prosecutors of the Brazilian Ministerio Publico have become significant actors in environmental protection through their use of investigative and legal instruments to impose civil and criminal liability for environmental harms. The Brazilian Ministerio Publico’s work is a response to the ‘non-enforcement problem’ of Brazilian environmental law in which laws tend to be strong ‘on-the-books’ but weak in practice. This chapter describes and analyzes the involvement of the Brazilian Ministerio Publico in environmental protection. It presents the instruments that prosecutors use to defend environmental interests; describes and provides an explanation for the legal and institutional changes in the 1980s that allowed the Ministerio Publico to become a significant actor in environmental protection; and assesses the effectiveness of the prosecutorial enforcement of environmental laws in Brazil.

Judging GMOs: Judicial Application of the Precautionary Principle in Brazil

The precautionary principle is included in many international environmental laws, but there is little consensus regarding its meaning and how it should be incorporated into governmental decisionmaking. With a focus on a landmark lawsuit in Brazil that prevented the federal government from approving the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in commercial agriculture, this article analyzes how national courts should apply the precautionary principle. The article argues that the precautionary principle is best understood to mean that decisionmakers should identify and consider risks with caution when faced with scientific uncertainty about potentially serious environmental harms and that courts should apply the precautionary principle as a procedural requirement when they review governmental decisions. The article contributes to a growing literature about compliance with international environmental norms and the role of national courts in the international legal system.

Oversight of Private Food Safety Auditing in the United States: A Hybrid Approach to Auditor Conflict of Interest

Modern food governance is increasingly hybrid, involving not only government, but also industry and civil society actors. This book analyzes the unfolding interplay between public and private actors in global and local food governance. How are responsibilities and risks allocated in hybrid governance arrangements, how is legitimacy ensured, and what effects do these arrangements have on industry or government practices? The expert contributors draw on law, economics, political science and sociology to discuss these questions through rich empirical cases.