LAW, POLITICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IN BRAZIL

This article aims to examine the evolution of legal provisions of the environmental question in Brazil as well as to analyze the existing contradictions between the country's legal order and its actual environmental situation. After a short comment on the basic aspects of the legal protection of the environment in Brazil, it will be argued that the legal picture is, on the whole, satisfactory, and cannot be referred to as the cause of the existing conditions of environmental degradation. The argument will be made that the causes of such a situation — as well as of inefficiency of the legislation — have to be looked for in the dynamics of the country's political process. The emphasis will then be put on the main factors which have determined the nature of state action on the matter and which have made the citizens' participation in environmental management extremely difficult, namely the existence of a conservative conception of the private property right, the lack of a proper environmental policy, the limited scope for the action of judicial power, and principally the existing centralized and segregative decision-making process. Finally, these elements will be analyzed in the light of the new 1988 Federal Constitution, justifying the claim that, if the legal picture is —more than ever—adequate, much has still to be done to ensure the full recognition of environmental values in the country's political process