Abstract
The purpose of this article is to investigate the abuse of presidential and administrative powers with a view to weakening environmental protection. We argue that the concept of “environmental authoritarianism”, designating both a democratic setback and a constitutional pathology, could be applied in order to describe the phenomenon whereby the government exploits certain legal institutions in order to erode constitutional defences against environmental degradation. Our argument is supported by a case study of the last three years of the Bolsonaro government in Brazil (2019-2021), focusing on a two-pronged analysis: a typology of the legal instruments on environmental policy in Brazil (legal competences and sources of law), and a brief report of all significant acts of environmental (un)protection implemented by the Bolsonaro government during this period. By contrasting the legal instruments and the governmental abuses, we suggest some legal patterns which might provide the basis for environmental authoritarianism in Brazil. These patterns, we argue, might even be generalised, by future research in comparative constitutionalism and international environmental law, to other contexts around the world.
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