UC Irvine Journal of International, Transnational, and Comparative Law
Article Title
The Unstoppable Force, the Immovable Object: Challenges for Structuring a Cosmopolitan Legal Education in Brazil
Abstract
This Article discusses the challenges for structuring a more
cosmopolitan legal education in the global South without falling in the
traps of legal colonialism, academic solipsism and social elitism. It does so
by examining the experience of FGV Direito SP, an attempt to create a
global Law school in Brazil. The Article suggests that understanding the
broad implications of a project for radically changing legal teaching in
Brazil requires a nuanced reading of the encounter between the purportedly
unstoppable force of globalization and the supposedly immovable object of
traditional legal institutions.
This Article is organized in four sections. The first discusses how
globalization and the return to democratic rule of law have created the need
for a new model of legal education in Brazil. The second discusses the legal
culture framework within which the new school appeared. The third
overviews the main lines of FGV Direito SP global-oriented legal
education. The fourth section presents the hurdles to offering a globaloriented
legal education in an emerging country overwhelmed by deep and
persistent social inequality and frames FGV’s experience within the
context of the ethical and political challenges for legal education in the
global South.
Recommended Citation
Oscar V. Vieira & José G. Ghirardi,
The Unstoppable Force, the Immovable Object: Challenges for Structuring a Cosmopolitan Legal Education in Brazil,
3
UC Irvine Journal of International, Transnational, and Comparative Law
(2018).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucijil/vol3/iss1/6