This project investigates the legal, political, and economic mechanisms that sustain democratic resilience in contexts of democratic erosion, through a comparative study of Brazil and Poland. It argues that law can function as a critical safeguard against institutional decline by activating mechanisms such as constitutional adjudication, regional human rights oversight, and systems of positive and negative conditionality embedded in international commitments.
The project further examines how institutional contexts shape the effectiveness of these mechanisms, particularly the presence or absence of economic integration frameworks capable of enforcing rule-of-law conditionality. The comparison therefore explores how supranational commitments and integration regimes may operate as external anchors for constitutional democracy.
Methodologically, the research combines intraregional analysis of institutional responses with a transregional comparison between Latin America and Europe. By analysing the interaction between domestic institutions and international legal commitments, the project aims to identify a repertoire of mechanisms through which courts, regional human rights systems, and conditionality frameworks can help halt democratic backsliding and support institutional reconstruction.
Researchers
Focus
Brazil / Polonia
Viviana Krsticevic
Viviana Krsticevic is Executive Director of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), based in Washington, D.C. and Buenos Aires. A lawyer and human rights advocate with decades of experience in international litigation, she has represented victims and civil society organizations before the Inter-American Court and Commission of Human Rights in landmark cases. She lectures and publishes widely on human rights protection, transitional justice, and democratic resilience, and serves on advisory boards of several international human rights initiatives.
Joan Solanes Mullor
Joan Solanes Mullor is Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at Universidad Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He holds a PhD in Law from the same university and has been a visiting researcher at institutions in Germany, the United States, and Latin America. His research focuses on constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, and the rule of law, with a particular emphasis on democratic backsliding, judicial independence, and constitutional courts in Europe and Latin America.
Jorge Roa
Jorge Ernesto Roa Roa is Professor of Constitutional Law at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and at Universidad Externado de Colombia. He holds a PhD in Law from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and a law degree from Colombia. His work focuses on constitutional design, constitutional adjudication, and the protection of fundamental rights in Latin America and Europe. He has served as a consultant to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and has published extensively on comparative constitutional law.
Roa Roa, Jorge Ernesto “La jurisdicción constitucional y la división de poderes: un modelo judicial cooperativo y de representación de intereses para el constitucionalismo transformador”. En: Bogdandy Armin von (et al). La jurisdicción constitucional en América Latina. Enfoques transversales desde el Ius Constitutionale Commune Vol. II. Tirant Lo Blanch, Valencia, 2025, pp. 152-182. ISBN: 978-84-1095-921-7.
Roa Roa, Jorge Ernesto y Aristizábal, Juan José. “How courts defend democracy: challenging authoritarianism and advancing social transformation”. Revista de Direito Econômico e Socioambiental, vol. 16, núm. 3, 2025, pp. 544-564.
Roa Roa, Jorge Ernesto y Aristizábal, Juan José. “¿El tribunal habla primero? Problemas y desafíos del control previo de constitucionalidad”. Dikaion, vol. 34, núm. 1, 2025, pp. 1-31.
Anna Luisa Walter
Anna Luisa Walter de Santana is Professor in the Graduate Program in Law at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR), where she also earned her PhD in Law. She is a member of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association and serves on the Executive Council of the Latin American Academy of Human Rights and Business.
Introductory readings
- Bobek, M., Bodnar, A., von Bogdandy, A., & Sonnevend, P. (Eds.). (2023). Transition 2.0: Re-establishing Constitutional Democracy in EU Member States. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.
- Kochenov, D., & Bárd, P. (2019). The last soldier standing? Courts vs. politicians and the rule of law crisis in the new member states of the EU. University of Groningen Faculty of Law Research Paper Series, 5.
- Levinson, S., & Balkin, J. M. (2009). Constitutional crises. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 157(3), 707–728.
- Torres, A. P. (2024). The constitutional impact of rule-of-law spending conditionality. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 22(3), 859–881.
- Halmai, G. (2018). The possibility and desirability of economic sanction: Rule of law conditionality requirements against illiberal EU Member States. EUI Working Paper LAW 2018/06.
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