The trial to demarcate the Indigenous Land Raposa Serra do Sol revealed the role of the STF as a positive legislator. The recently published decision on the case incorporated the so called institutional safeguards introduced by the 19 conditions to the executive action and to indigenous peoples rights as presented during the hearings. Some of these safeguards, actual normative statements, threaten to move backwards the recognition of minority ethnic groups in brazil. They go against the international commitments of the state towards human rights, particularly regarding the interpretation of indigenous peopels original right to lands and the non-recognition of the indigenous political organization a capacity to control their own lands.
brazilian supreme court; Indigenous Land Raposa Serra do Sol; indigenous peoples; territorial rights; normative statements