The art of making justice. The intimacy behind the Court’s most difficult cases
(A arte de fazer justiça – A intimidade dos casos mais dificeis da Corte Suprema da Argentina | El arte de hacer justicia. La intimidad de los casos más difíciles de la Corte Suprema)
Publishing house (in portuguese): Revista dos Tribunais
Year 2015
What is it like to do justice in Argentina? What happens behind the doors of the Palace (Palacio de Tribunales)? How are the most delicate rulings solved? This book began with the idea of answering those questions and exposing the work of the Supreme Court to the citizens, to those who are not lawyers or don’t know the language of law. But it ended up becoming something bigger. Based on important cases, the book analyzes the conduct of diverse, multicultural societies, the articulation of conflicts and consensus, the protection of freedom of expression, the ability to freely decide our lifestyles, the debate on equality of subsidies or opportunities, social exclusion, environmental protection and the rule of law. Ricardo Lorenzetti, president of the Supreme Court from 2004 to 2018, narrates in this book, in a kind, “easy-to-read” language, with few (if not any) legal terms, and in the first person, the unknown details of the most complex cases that the Argentine Justice had to face in the last years and that gave birth to a rereading of the Constitution, facing the most acute problems of our society. The book shows the debates inside and outside the Court and marks the great guidelines of the 21st century’s new cycle of governance.
Prologue “The Global Financial Crisis and The Need For Consumer Regulation: New Developments on International Protection”
(Prólogo en “The Global Financial Crisis and The Need For Consumer Regulation: New Developments on International Protection”)
Asociación de Derecho Internacional Privado (ASADIP) Facultade de Direito da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Publishing house (in portuguese): Orquesta Editora
Year 2012
The choice of this topic for the elaboration of a research book is not only right due to its topicality, but also because it provides an opportunity to reflect on the way in which the law addresses these problems. This second question rises a certain malaise of the facts regarding the theory at different levels. Cases do not conform to the rules, the laws do not provide solutions, the legal theory seems to be uncomfortable and, above all, the legal system lost credibility. (Excerpt from the prologue by Ricardo L. Lorenzetti: Rethinking actions for international consumer protection against the financial crisis)
General theory of environmental law
(Teoria Geral do Direito Ambiental | Teoría general de derecho ambiental)
Publishing house (in portuguese): Revista Dos Tribunais
Year 2010
The legal history of the West was built on the basis of the protection of property and of the person, which left an indelible mark in numerous investigations, which lead to the application of that model of guardianship to a new area: the environment. Throughout this work, we try to demonstrate that this adaptation is incorrect because we are not in the presence of an analogous fact, but a completely different one. Therefore, it requires an appropriate theory … Environmental goods are not mere empirical facts that can be legislated, but they are part of a complex system that motivates its own regulations and classifying orders. All it takes is to observe the international treaties and national laws existing in the world on soils, seas, drinking water, glaciers, flora and fauna, pure air, global warming, species in extinction and others similar to appreciate the insufficiency of the analogy. (Fragment of the Preface)
Judicial Decision Theory. Law fundaments
(Teoria da Decisão Judicial. Fundamentos de Direito | Teoría de la decisión judicial. Fundamentos de Derechos)
Translation by Bruno Miragem. Translation notes and review: Cláudia Lima Marques
Publishing house (in portuguese): Revista dos Tribunais
Year 2009
This book is the result of an extensive research that arose from the need to understand how current law really works, which is not easy, even if it seems so. Operational analysis is a methodological definition. It is important to conceive it as an instrument to solve problems. For this reason, we’ve dedicated ourselves to study how legal decisions are made, which include those decisions that arise from judges, the Legislative power, the Executive power and also from the intermediate institutions that adjudicate goods. The fact that great judges, philosophers and jurists from numerous countries have dedicated their efforts to this issue shows that it is of the utmost importance. (Fragment of the Introduction)
Long-term captive services and contracts: studies for a systemic theory of contracts in the civil code of 2002 and in the consumer protection framework
(Serviços e contratos cativos de longa duração: estudos para uma teoria sistemica do contrato no codigo civil de 2002 e no coidgo de defesa do consumidor)
Co-writer: Cláudia Lima Marques
Publishing house (in portuguese): Revista dos Tribunais
General theory of the contract
(Teoría general del contrato)
Publishing house (in portuguese): Revista dos Tribunais
Electronic Commerce
(Comércio eletrônico | Comercio electrónico)
Translated by Fabiano Menke, with notes by Cláudia Lima Marques
Publishing house (in portuguese): Revista dos Tribunais
Year 2004
The emergence of the digital era raised the need to rethink important aspects related to social organization, democracy, technology, privacy and freedom, and it has been observed that many approaches do not present the theoretical sophistication that such problems require; they are sterilized, erased by rhetoric, ideology and naivety. Opinions seem seduced by novelty. The Supreme Court of the United States demonstrated its admiration for chat sites and websites, defining them as “democratic forums”. Along the same line, other authors have suggested that the Internet is a “democratic paradise”, or even a way of reaffirming the decline of political participation. (Fragment of the Introduction)
Law and Internet
(Direito e Internet | Derecho e internet)
Directed by Dr. Newton De Lucca
Publishing house (in portuguese): Edipro
Year 2000
Already a long time ago, literature and philosophy anticipated their pronouncements around the naive representation of a technologically developed and democratic world and pointed out the enormous risks in terms of concentration and social control. It seems that novelty and naivety lead to ignore all that cultural baggage and that mistake leads us to ignore that the current trend in the Network is oriented to the creation of large groups that establish alliances, which end up guiding the “navigator” along roads which were are have been marked by predetermined convenience (Excerpt from the chapter “Computer science, Cyberlaw, e-commerce”, written by Ricardo L. Lorenzetti)
Private law fundaments
(Fundamentos do direito privado | Fundamentos de derecho privado)
Publishing house (in portuguese): Revista dos Tribunais
Year 1998
Ricardo Luis Lorenzetti, Argentine by birth and a universal jurist by vocation, is undoubtedly one of the most stimulating and profound Latin American civilists of today. Lorenzetti is not only the successor in the professorship of Civil and Commercial Law of the brilliant Argentine law professor Professor Jorge Mosset Iturraspe of the University of Santa Fe, but also a person who inherited from this great jurist the global and human vision, both realistic and sensitive. That vision is necessary for the challenges of the science of law and for the needs of today’s society. (Fragment of the Presentation, by Cláudia Lima Marques, year 1998)