The Brazilian Anti-Terrorism Bill and the international circulation of punitive legal regimes

The Brazilian Anti-Terrorism Bill (no. 13.260/2016) was drafted and approved in the context of the street demonstrations to have occurred from 2013 to 2015 and the state violence to have erupted in their wake, linked to the major sporting events held over the period. An examination of the process by which this legislation was implemented prompts a debate over its constitution as a legal mechanism able to justify extraordinary measures within a formal democratic regime. It is based on this premise that an exploratory and explanatory analysis is provided of the social, political, and historical phenomena raised by the question debated in the article. Such an approach thus seeks to demonstrate how legal uncertainty - transmitted through the use of vague expressions - allows the state power to endow the Brazilian State with the capacity to act freely and to selectively frame social and political demonstrations as acts of terrorism.