O confisco constitucional de terras no Brasil e sua ineficácia como instrumento de combate ao trabalho escravo rural contemporâneo

Abstract

This dissertation examines the constitutional confiscation of land provided for in Article 243 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution as an instrument to combat contemporary rural slave labor, investigating the reasons for its persistent institutional ineffectiveness despite its explicit constitutional status. The research addresses the problem of why the expropriatory sanction established by Constitutional Amendment No. 81/2014 remains without concrete application, even in the face of the structural persistence of contemporary slavery in rural Brazil. It advances the hypothesis that this ineffectiveness does not result from normative weakness, but from the combined effect of prolonged legislative omission, restrictive judicial patterns, and institutional choices that neutralize structural patrimonial sanctions. The methodology is juridical-dogmatic, combined with historical-constitutional analysis, institutional empirical data, and systematic jurisprudential review. The first chapter reconstructs contemporary slave labor as a structural phenomenon linked to land concentration and labor precariousness. The second chapter analyzes constitutional land confiscation as an extreme patrimonial sanction grounded in the social function of property and fundamental rights. The third chapter examines the institutional limits to its enforcement, including legislative omission, judicial restraint, and a culture of impunity, as well as critically assessing pending legislative proposals and the possible analogical application of Law No. 8,257/1991 as a provisional and exceptional alternative. The findings confirm the initial hypothesis, showing that constitutional confiscation remains legally valid and normatively robust, yet institutionally neutralized. It concludes that its effectiveness depends not only on statutory regulation but also on an interpretive and institutional reorientation committed to the structural protection of human dignity and to dismantling the economic foundations of contemporary rural slavery.