Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyze how and why the impact of the norms of the Inter-American Human Rights System on transitional justice has been hindered in Brazil. In this sense, a qualitative research design based on interviews was adopted, in addition to the consultation of secondary sources and courts’ rulings. In this sense, I argue that the lack of capable litigant Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) interested in acting transnationally on transitional justice issues compromises the impact of the Inter-American System. Moreover, the institutional preservation of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) as well as its composition and juridical culture inherited from the dictatorship have contributed, on the one hand, to the irrelevance of the human rights international law within the court. On the other hand, during the judicial revision process, these factors have also strengthened the practice of “positivism à la carte” (Ventura, 2011) that extrapolates the analysis of the written law in favor of other convenient exegetical matrices, as the historical method used in light of the amnesty law, even when that implies sustaining the authoritarian legal system’s legacy, which the STF has defended along with the Armed Forces.
Keywords:
Brazil; Inter-American Human Rights System; transitional justice; Non-governmental Organizations; Judiciary; Araguaia guerrilla movement.