HOW DOES THE LAW PUT A HISTORICAL ANALOGY TO WORK?: DEFINING THE IMPOSITION OF “A CONDITION ANALOGOUS TO THAT OF A SLAVE” IN MODERN BRAZIL - DOI: 10.12818/P.0304-2340.2020v77p43

Autori

  • Carlos Henrique Borlido Haddad
  • Leonardo Augusto de Andrade Barbosa
  • Rebecca J. Scott

Abstract

Over two decades, the Brazilian state has engaged in concerted legal efforts to identify and prosecute cases of what officials refer to as the imposition of “slave labor” (trabalho escravo). At a conceptual level, the campaign has paired the constitutional protection of human dignity with an interpretation of the offense described in Article 149 of the Criminal Code as “the reduction of a person to a condition analogous to that of a slave.” At the operational level, mobile teams of
inspectors and prosecutors have intervened in thousands of work sites, and labor prosecutors have obtained hundreds of consent agreements and convictions in the labor courts. This article – co-authored by a legal historian, a staff attorney at the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, and a federal judge – draws on a massive archive of work site inspection reports to explore the ways in which inspectors and prosecutors give specific meaning to the analogy with chattel slavery. The authors find that the term “slave labor,” in this context, does not depend upon the international law definition of slavery as the exercise over a person of “any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership.” Instead, it identifies specific behaviors that are no longer permissible as between employer and worker, and which reproduce elements of what was once imposed by masters upon slaves. Intermediate normative terms introduced in the 2003 revision of the penal code – which prohibits the subjection of workers to “degrading conditions” and “debilitating work days” – have through the inspection processes taken on specific meaning. Rather than representing subjective notions in potential conflict with the principal of legality, as critics argue, their interpretation has unfolded through careful processes of documentation, negotiation, and prosecution. In Brazil’s current situation of political polarization and institutional fracture, this remarkable campaign against slave labor is coming under fierce attack from large-scale landholders and from elements within the executive, a development which adds urgency to the task of explicating the campaign’s legal bases and operational practices.

Riferimenti bibliografici

ALLAIN, Jean. The legal understanding of slavery: from the historical to the contemporary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 395 p.

BARBOSA, Leonardo Augusto de Andrade. Constitutional law and the fight against contemporary slavery in Brazil: putting property on the line (Sept. 15, 2014) (unpublished manuscript).

BARBOSA, Leonardo Augusto de Andrade. Enjeux de la définition juridique de l’esclavage contemporain au Brésil: liberté, dignité et droits constitutionnels.Brésil, Paris n. 11, 2017. Disponível em: <https://journals.openedition.org/bresils/2138>. Acesso em: 15/06/2017.

BARBOSA, Leonardo Augusto de Andrade. PAIXÃO, Cristiano. Perspectives on Human Dignity. (On Judicial Rulings Regarding Contemporary Slavery in Brazil). Quaderni Fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico modern, Milano, n. 44, 2015, p. 1167–84.

BARROSO, Luís Roberto. Here, There, and Everywhere: Human Dignity in Contemporary Law and in the Transnational Discourse. Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, n. 35, v. 2, p. 331-393, 2012.

BIAVESCHI, Magda Barros. Justiça de Trabalho e Terceirização: Um estudo a partir dos processos judiciais. In: A Justiça do Trabalho e sua história: os direitos dos trabalhadores no Brasil. GOMES, Ângela Maria de Castro. Campinas: Unicamp, 2013, p. 47-80.

CARR, Bridgette. MILGRAM, Anne. KIM, Katheleen. WARNATH, Stephen. Human trafficking law and policy. United States: Lexisnexis, 2014, 482 p.

CAVALCANTI, Klester. A dama da liberdade: a história de Marinalva Dantas, a mulher que libertou 2.354 trabalhadores escravos no Brasil, em pleno século 21. São Paulo: Benvirá, 2015, 392 p.

FIGUEIRA, Ricardo Rezende. Pisando fora da própria sombra: a escravidão por dívida no Brasil contemporâneo. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2004, 445 p.

FIGUEIRA, Ricardo Rezende. PRADO, Adonia Antunes. GALVÃO, Edna Maria. Privação de liberdade ou atentado à dignidade: escravidão contemporânea. Mauad X: Rio de Janeiro, 2013, 488 p.

FIGUEIRA, Ricardo Rezende. PRADO, Adonia Antunes. SANT’ANA

JÚNIOR, Horácio Aruntune de. Trabalho escravo contemporâneo: um debate transdisciplinar. Mauad X: Rio de Janeiro, 2011, 296 p.

FIGUEIRA, Ricardo Rezende. PRADO, Adonia Antunes. PALMEIRA,

Rafael Franca. L’esclavage contemporain et ses transformations en Amazonie brésilienne: les témoignages des victims. Brésil, Paris, n. 11, 2017. Disponível em: <https://journals.openedition.org/bresils/2138>. Acesso em: 19/06/2017.

FRENCH, John D. Drowning in laws: labor law and Brazilian political culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004, 256 p.

GOMES, Ângela Maria de Castro. Ministério Público do Trabalho: uma história vivida e contada. Rio de Janeiro: CPDOC/Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego, 2007, 376 p.

GOMES, Ângela Maria de Castro. Trabalho análogo a de escravo: construindo um problema. História Oral, v. 11, n. 1-2, 2008, p. 11-41.

GROSS, Ariela. A crime against humanity: slavery and the boundaries of legality, past and present. Law and History Review, n. 1. v. 35, feb., 2017, p. 1-8.

HADDAD, Carlos Henrique Borlido. The definition of slave labor for

criminal enforcement and the experience of adjudication. Michigan Journal of International Law, n. 38, v. 3, 2017, p. 497-523.

HÉBRARD, Jean M. Slavery in Brazil: Brazilian Scholars in the key interpretive debates. Translated by Thomas Scott-Railton, Translating the Americas, v. 1, 2013, p. 47-95.

MACKINNON, Catharine A. Defining rape internationally: a comment on akayesu. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, New Yourk, n. 44, 2006, p. 940-958.

MAMIGONIAN, Beatriz G. GRINBERG, Keila. Le crime de réduction à

l’esclavage d’une personne libre (Brésil, XIX siècle). Brésil, Paris, n. 11, 2017. Disponível em: <https://journals.openedition.org/bresils/2138>. Acesso em:

/06/2017.

MIRAGLIA, Lívia Mendes Moreira. Trabalho escravo contemporâneo:

conceituação à luz do princípio da dignidade da pessoa humana. 2ª ed. São Paulo: LTR, 2015. 200 p.

PAES, Mariana Armond Dias. O crime de “redução à condição análoga à de escravo” em dados: análise dos acórdãos do Tribunal Regional Federal da 1ª Região. In: Discussões contemporâneas sobre trabalho escravo: teoria e pesquisa. FIGUEIRA, Ricardo Rezende. PRADO, Adonia Antunes. GALVÃO, Edna Maria. Mauad X: Rio de Janeiro, 2016, p. 81-98.

PAES, Mariana Armond Dias. L’histoire devant les tribunaux: la notion

d’esclavage contemporain dans les décisions judiciaires brésiliennes. Brésil, Paris, n. 11, 2017. Disponível em: <https://journals.openedition.org/bresils/2138>. Acesso em: 01/07/2017.

PAIXÃO, Cristiano. Direito, política, autoritarismo e democracia no Brasil: da Revolução de 30 à promulgação da Constituição da República de 1988. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Polítcia, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, n. 26, v. 13, p. 146–169, 2011.

RAILTON, Peter. Moral learning: conceptual foundations and normative relevance. Cognition, n. 167, oct. 2017, p. 172-190.

SAKAMOTO, Leonardo. PLASSAT, Xavier. Desafios para uma política de enfrentamento ao tráfico de seres humanos para o trabalho escravo. In: Política nacional de enfrentamento ao tráfico de pessoas. Secretaria Nacional de Justiça. 2ª ed. Brasília: SNJ, 2008, p. 13-18.

SCOTT, Rebecca J. Dignité/Dignidade: organizing against threats to dignity in societies after slavery. In Understanding human dignity. MCCRUDDEN, Christopher. Oxford: Oxford University Press, v. 192, 2013, p. 61-78.

STOYANOVA, Vladislava. Human trafficking and slavery reconsidered:

conceptual limits and states’positive obligations in European law. Michigan Journal of International Law, n. 38, v. 3, 2017, p. 292-318.

THÉRY, Hervé. MELLO, Neli Aparecida de. HATO, Julio. GIRARDI, Eduardo Paulon. Atlas do trabalho escravo no Brasil. São Paulo: Amigos da Terra - Amazônia Brasileira, 2012, 80 p.

##submission.downloads##

Pubblicato

2020-12-30

Fascicolo

Sezione

Dossiê Temático