Indigenous land demarcation conflicts in Brazil: Has the Supreme Court’s decision brought (in)stability?

Guilherme Fowler A. Monteiro (), Luciana Yeung Luk Tai (), Silvia Morales Q. Caleman () and Leandro S. Pongeluppe ()
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Guilherme Fowler A. Monteiro: Insper Institute of Education and Research
Silvia Morales Q. Caleman: Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul
Leandro S. Pongeluppe: University of Toronto

European Journal of Law and Economics, 2019, vol. 48, issue 2, No 5, 267-290

Abstract: Abstract We investigate judiciary decision-making patterns regarding property rights conflicts between native Brazilians and rural farmers in the Midwest region of Brazil. Our main contribution is the use of the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method for the evaluation of the issue. We use QCA to examine a unique database composed of cases heard by a regional federal court in Brazil between 1999 and 2013. Our empirical analysis is based on the outcomes of the individual judicial procedures along with the specific laws and jurisprudences evoked by the federal judges in making their decisions. We find evidence that a major case settled by the Brazilian Supreme Court in 2009, celebrated as a landmark in national jurisprudence and expected to bring stability to the conflicts, did not have this effect on lower courts’ judgments. In fact, the 2009 decision triggered a proliferation of different interpretations among judges about how to analyze the land conflicts, thus changing the structure of the judges’ decisions. Based on these findings, we can shed new light on the dynamics of judicial decision-making regarding property rights conflicts of indigenous lands in Brazil.

Keywords: Indigenous; Landowners; Land conflicts; Property rights; Judicial system; QCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 K41 P48 Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10657-019-09628-3

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