Brazilian anti-terrorism policies in the context of contemporany challenges to international security

Abstract

The present paper ponders the ways through  which  Brazil  has  been  dea-ling  with  the  problem  of  internatio-nal terrorism, given that the country is not a target of terrorist attacks so far.  It  is  particularly  opportune  to  raise  this  question  when  Brazil  has  gained  more  international  visibility  due  to  the  World  Cup,  Olympics  but  also  after  the  country’s  decision  to  send  troops  to  Lebanon.  The  paper  presents the Brazilian policies to pre-vent and fight terrorism, considering its  commitment  to  international  tre-aties and conventions. It also addres-ses  domestic  norms  and  institutions  created over the past decades to deal with  the  problem.  Particularly,  the  paper  presents  the  recently  appro-ved anti-terrorist bill through which Brazil typifies terrorism and introdu-ces  to  the  domestic  law  specific  pe-nalties  and  procedures  to  prosecute  those  directly  or  indirectly  accused  of  involvement  with  this  crime.  The  paper  also  shed  light  to  many  criti-cism  the  new  bill  has  received  and  problematizes  the  extent  to  which  Brazil needs a specific anti-terrorism legislations.