2018 Vol. 1, Issue 1


THE TRANSFORMATION AND UPGRADING OF BILATERAL ECONOMIC AND TRADE RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA AND BRAZIL

Permanent Secretariat of the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese speaking Countries (Macao)
This article reviews the transformation and upgrading process of China-Brazil bilateral economic and trade relations on trade, investment, finance and services, from the Chinese perspective. The volume of trade between China and Brazil reached a record high in 2013. It then dropped afterwards due to economic recession in Brazil, but data from 2017 shows an encouraging recovery. Trade relations have strong support from the highest political authorities, including the Chinese President, Xi Jinping. Chinese investment in Brazil increased and has been highly diversified since 2010. Despite the aforementioned economic recession after 2013 and losses suffered by many companies, their persistence, a step by step approach and diversified development approach assured their success in Brazil. This success was helped by Brazil’s investment partnership program (infrastructure-based privatization investment plan) launched in 2016. On the financial realm, at first, Chinese financial institutions chose to issue commercial loans to support the implementation of relevant projects. Afterwards, in order to support mergers and acquisitions investment of Chinese enterprises in Brazil, they began to apply syndicated loans and financial investments. On services, China and Brazil have effectively cooperated on important areas, but this should be a good time to expand and strengthen such cooperation to more areas.

MERGERS IN LATIN AMERICA: A CHILEAN, MEXICAN AND BRAZILIAN APPROACH

Fernando M. Furlan
The article analyses the merger review systems of Brazil, Chile and Mexico and their latest changes and developments. Brazil with it’s new Competition law made a radical change in M&A review with an ex-ante system. Chile finally implemented a mandatory merger review system and Mexico undertook significant changes in it’s institutional framework, including the creation of specialized courts on Competition and Telecom.

INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS: THE ILA’S RECOMMENDATIONS AND GUIDELINES ON THE INTERNATIONAL CONSUMER CONTRACTS AND THE ROLE OF IACL

Claudia Lima Marques
The Revision of the United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection and the creation of an Intergovernmental Group of Experts at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development bring hope again for better days on consumer protection all over the world. On the subject of the international protection of consumers two associations have meet and joined forces: the International Law Association and the International Association of Consumer Law. This Article will analyze the role of these two associations to enhance the consumer protection in our world. The International Law Association’s Committee on International Protection of Consumers contribution came first with the approval of the Sofia Statement on the Development of International Principles on Consumer Protection. The second major contribution came through the Johannesburg International Law Association Resolution, which analyzes all the models used by national and international actors on respect of the law applicable for international consumer contracts and also contain a second part – the Johannesburg Recommendation on international protection of consumers. By its turn the International Association of Consumer Law has until today acted more as an academic association but since the creation of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Consumer Policy and Law has acted also as observer.

BRICS COUNTRIES: FRATERNITY AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE THE RIGHT TO HEALTH

Sandra Regina Martini, Germano Schwartz & Matteo Finco
In BRICS’ context, how is it possible to approach such distant and different realities? In which way these differences can be decreased? The birth of the BRICS group is a bid on difference: how a new form of cooperation between countries could be realized? This research is set to identify how is possible to find “bridges” between these nations, especially about health. It used the Metatheory of Fraternal Law because, through this methodology, it is possible to identify how the model of health of each country may complement others. This, with the awareness that the right to health is a bridge through which make other social rights effective. Thus, precisely for integrating this group, composed by geographically distant and very different countries – that however are capable of a fraternal view (to see the other as another-me) – it is possible to visualize concrete possibilities of social transformation trough a new way of international cooperation. In fact these countries, beside the economic development, seems to be able to make human rights effective.

SCHOOL VIOLENCE AND THE DILEMMAS OF SOCIAL CONTROL: FOR A SAFE SCHOOL IN 21ST CENTURY

José Vicente Tavares dos Santos
The panorama in the 21st century is marked by world social issues, which express themselves in an articulated way but with certain specificities. The social conflict centred on work since the 19th century has turned into more complex and global issues, since several dimensions of social life have come to be collectively questioned, among them that of social relations in urban spaces. One of the new global social issues is the School Violence. The understanding of the relation between school and practices of violence against property entails the reconstruction of the complexity of social relationships present within the social space in school. In this article, we will discuss this social fact founded in some researches that have been done in Brazil, our most important field work, but also in French, the United States, Canada, South Africa, Mexico and Hong Kong. We will explain the school violence question in four parts: 1. Introduction: a new social issue; 2. The Explanation of School Violence; 3. The Brazilian Society and the School Violence; and 4. Social struggles and school violence: the possibilities of pacification. The conclusion points out a dialogical approach on school violence which explains violence as a problem to be worked in a pedagogical content. Therefore, in order to guarantee the discourse of dialogue, not only the strengthening of school institutions and the affirmation of a multicultural social space is necessary, but also the recognition of conflict as potentially generating social bonds. In this way, the fundamental condition is that mediation and negotiation are deployed as a strategy for conflict resolution in the school institution.

BRAZIL’S FAILURE TO GRAB A UN SECURITY COUNCIL PERMANENT SEAT: A TALE OF EXPECTATIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENT

Dawisson Belém Lopes & Aziz Tuffi Saliba
This article aims at delivering an account on why Brazil, a World War II victor and arguably the most important Latin American representative at the time of the foundation of the United Nations, failed in winning a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council in 1945. Our article intends to shed light on systemic as well as domestic aspects of the problem – such as the dynamics involving Brazil and Latin America vis-à-vis the rest of the world in the early 1940s, the strong opposition faced from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union as the proposal of granting a permanent seat to Brazil at the United Nations Security Council was put forward, the way Brazilian diplomats, politicians, and general stakeholders have handled the question, the conflict between 'regionalistic' versus 'universalistic' approaches toward the United Nations Security Council membership, the different legal understandings that have been forged over the years regarding the veto power and its uses etc. We conclude with a pessimistic prognosis on the odds of having Brazil as a United Nations Security Council permanent member (thus as a veto power holder) any time soon, given its regionally grounded middle-power profile as well as the United Nations reform’s inherent contradictions and practical traps.

LOCATIONS/POSITIONALITIES: WOMEN’S WRITING IN XIX CENTURY BRAZIL

Rita Terezinha Schmidt
Currently, the globalization, hegemony of marketplace doctrine, transnational capitalism and mediated mass culture consumption seem to have profound effects on national cultures. However, while profoundly affecting national cultures, this phenomena has, at the same time, stimulated the theorization of political, social, historical and symbolical implications subsumed and fostered by the technologies of nationalism, past and present. This article uses the background of the historical conditions resulting from the processes of colonization and slavery in Brazil, and examines some specific issues in non-canonical Brazilian fiction: of place, of time, of writing, of voices and positionalities, and tries to discuss the complex problems, namely, if it is possible to chart another representational economy that disturbs the genealogy of national narratives and, consequently, questions the idealistic configurations of nationhood.

WHY WE NEED AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE INTERNET: A BRAZILIAN PERSPECTIVE

Daniel Freire e Almeida
The main goal of this article is to demonstrate the necessity and the proposal to establish an International Tribunal for the Internet. The working paper is divided into two sections. First, it raises some arguments and innovative aspects introduced by the Internet and the consequent challenges on jurisdictional enforcement, from the Brazilian perspective. In the second section, more specifically, it suggests that an International Tribunal for the Internet shall be established due to the challenges that national jurisdictions are facing to enforce its law and judicial decisions.

THE CHOICE OF COURT CLAUSE IN INTERNATIONAL CONSUMER CONTRACTS: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONSUMER ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN THE MERCOSUR COUNTRIES

Alberto do Amaral Júnior & Luciane Klein Vieira
In the Southern Common Market, the regional consumer protection issue has been a concern for legal scholars because of the absence of protection rules and the vulnerability which characterizes consumers. In this regard, the possibility of choosing the competent judge in international contracts of consumption becomes a measure of protection to the legally weaker party. This article mainly examines the changes in international jurisdiction in Argentine and Brazilian domestic law, and also considers the state of the art in the other States that did not even introduce modifications, to see whether they include the possibility of choosing the competent judge in international contracts of consumption or if this is partially or totally prohibited by the legislator, as a measure of legal protection in Mercosur States.

NEW CIVIL-INSTRUMENTAL IDENTITY OF THE CONSUMER BASED ON THE BRAZILIAN CONSUMER POLICY

Dennis Verbicaro
In sum, the article aims to analyse the formation of civil identity and consumer actions as an expression of deliberative democracy, and the qualified public participation in the Brazilian’s Policy for Consumer Relations. Besides, it identifies the State as an important developer of effective and qualified civil society input, ensuring better prevention and prosecution of offenses committed in the market, and also improving the quality and safety of consumption’s goods and services in general.


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