SLAVE LABOR AND PROPERTY IN DISPUTE IN BRAZIL

ANALYSIS OF THE FEDERAL REGIONAL COURT OF THE FIRST REGION DECISIONS

Abstract

The main objective of the article is to analyze how the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region understands the conflicting relationship between property and slave labor in Brazil, since rural properties concentrate most cases of modern slavery. For this, in the first part, it approaches agrarian reform and agrarian confiscation as fundamental parts of the Brazilian land policy, considering the social function of property provided by the article 186 of the Federal Constitution. Thus, it intends to identify a relationship between property and labor, especially labor analogous to slavery. In the second part, it analyzes how the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region analyzes slave labor and if the labor issue is interpreted as necessary to mischaracterize the social function of property. The search criteria used are the terms "expropriation and agrarian reform and social function or social function of rural property" and "rural slave labor" in the period 1999 to 2019. The methodological choice consists of the non-systematized bibliographic method and the quantitative and qualitative research of the documentary type, performed through the content analysis method. The research results indicate a very small presence of discussion regarding work in the evaluation of the social function of rural properties, and a low number of decisions involving the issue of slave labor. The article concludes that there is a prevalence of productive property in the decisions evaluated, as well as a currently conservative stance on the relationship between property and work.