work in progress: law and environment in Brazil and in the USA

This thesis is about some of the dilemmas expressed by the institutional administration of environmental conflicts in Brazil and in the USA. Both societies have been facing, specially for the last forty years, the raising of the environment as a public issue and the inherent complexity of environmental litigation, usually taking the form of collective lawsuits and having a high degree of factual complexity. However, the different dilemmas faced by each of these societies have to do not only with the inherent complexity of environmental litigation but also with how these complexities interact with the different institutionalized forms of truth seeking and access to Justice of both Brazil and the USA. In the USA some of the dilemmas identified have to do with the reproduction of an adversarial ideology – i.e. one in which due process of law is related to party control of the process - while non-adversarial practices play a increasing role in environmental litigation. In Brazil on the other hand, some of the dilemmas identified have to do with conciliating the inquisitorial ideology widely spread in environmental law – one in which the protection of the public interest is related to an active role of the Judge and/or the Attorney General in truth-seeking - with Constitutional demand for due process of law.