Brazil's top court rules US laws do not apply to its territory

https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20250819-brazil-s-top-court-rules-us-laws-do-not-apply-to-its-territory

by matheusmoreira • 11 months ago

28 35 11 months ago

According to the Constitution of Brazil, foreign court decisions "can only be enforced in Brazil upon approval or in compliance with international judicial cooperation mechanisms," the court said.
Although the ruling did not explicitly mention the Magnitsky Act, a Brazilian court source told AFP that the ruling "in theory" invalidates the law in Brazil -- though Washington has already contested this interpretation.

They are moving to sacrifice the country's entire economy in order to maintain the despotic supreme court judge who got sanctioned under Magnitsky.

If they keep this up it's pretty much over for this country. Wow.

duxup• 11 months ago

I'm a little lost on the whole story here, article is short.

What did the US government expect? The Brazilian government to carry out their wishes just because of US legal action in the US?

cactacea• 11 months ago

Essentially, yes. Trump has no understanding of what the word sovereign means (or just doesn't care).

matheusmoreira15• 11 months ago

I'm a little lost on the whole story here, article is short.

I submitted to HN and discussed all the major episodes of this saga. Here are the links if you'd like to know more.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44152909

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44188337

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44256169

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44613114

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736860

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44793777

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44869353

Some of these have been flagged and my comments are almost always downvoted to oblivion but I don't care, I will continue speaking out because these are my honest opinions on the subject.

Under the pretext of protecting denocracy, the unelected, supposedly impartial brazilian supreme court waged an all out legal and political war against our "Trump equivalent". They have engaged in unconstitutional censorship and politically motivated arrests.

They have usurped the functions of the legislative and executive branches of government. They are essentially judge-kings and have transformed my country into a dictatorship of the judiciary.

One of these judges has been sanctioned by the USA under the Magnitsky Act, an unprecedented consequence that nobody thought would ever happen. I mean that literally: these judges publicly mocked the idea that they would ever be sanctioned for their actions.

Now they are apparently moving to defy the sanctions by ordering banks to continue providing services to the sanctioned judge despite the sanctions.

This will get our banks banned from the international banking system, isolating our country. The economic damage this will cause simply cannot be calculated.

Brazil is essentially the world's soy farm and we import like 70% of our fertilizer. They're going to sacrifice everything to protect these judges and display their non-existent "sovereignty", like a defiant child trying to stand up to its parent. Brazil is pretty much done for if this continues.

ronsor• 11 months ago

This will get our banks banned from the international banking system, isolating our country. The ecomomic [sic] damage this will cause simply cannot be calculated.

Is this going to be like the Russian sanctions?

arunabha• 11 months ago

Some of these have been flagged and my comments are almost always downvoted to oblivion but I don't care, I will continue speaking out because these are my honest opinions on the subject.

If only you spent a fraction of that energy on self reflection...

db48x• 11 months ago

While this is no doubt an important topic of discussion, you keep getting flagged because it’s off topic for HN. Check the guidelines <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>:

    On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

    Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

You would probably have better luck finding a different forum to discuss it on.

petronio2• 11 months ago

Brazil is essentially the world's soy farm and we import like 70% of our fertilizer.

You might want to check the sources from which we import those fertilizers, largest of which are Russia and China. While some do come from more US aligned sources, including the US itself, most of the names on that list have no problems ignoring US sanctions if it comes to that.

They're going to sacrifice everything to protect these judges and display their non-existent "sovereignty", like a defiant child trying to stand up to its parent.

Our sovereignty is very much real and existent :)

Brazil is pretty much done for if this continues.

Nope, we'll be fine.

hshdhdhj4444• 11 months ago

This will get our banks banned from the international banking system, isolating our country. The economic damage this will cause simply cannot be calculated.

What about Trump’s actions makes anyone think that Brazil will escape this fate if only it suborns its democracy to Trump’s whims?

Of the BRICS nation, the only one that isn’t being targeted by Trump is Russia. We don’t need to get into why that is.

India is being targeted purportedly for importing Russian oil which is obviously nonsensical considering Russia keeps escaping additional sanctions and other areas, such as China which imports more Russian oil and the EU which imports far more gas, don’t face sanctions for this reason.

China has been facing a whole set of sanctions for the past 6 months and other restrictions.

South Africa faced an escalation based on nonsensical claims of white genocide (South Africa has a massive crime problem…there’s no evidence it’s targeted towards white people and if anything the opposite seems true considering black South Africans are suffering more from crime than white SA)

And these are just BRICS. We haven’t even gotten to the Penguins yet.

motorest7• 11 months ago

Under the pretext of protecting denocracy, the unelected, supposedly impartial brazilian supreme court waged an all out legal and political war against our "Trump equivalent". They have engaged in unconstitutional censorship and politically motivated arrests.

This personal opinion sounds awfully outlandish, and it's baffling how it leaves out the fact that the "trump equivalent" engaged in a coup and your wall of text boils down to "he is facing a trial for his coup attempt, and he is currently awaiting sentence".

In fact, each discussion you cited reminds you of this fact, but somehow you repeatedly posted outlandish comments, such as claiming that judges ruling over a coup attempt are somehow the ones perpetrating a coup?

Perhaps someone else from Brazil should chime in, as I feel your comments convey an alternative version of reality that doesn't reflect the majority of facts and instead leans heavily on unsupported and very emotional and partial interpretations.

Edit: while reading through the discussions you cited, I stumbled upon your comment discussing how you are going through therapy and your therapist already gave you recommendations on how you should modulate your behavior. Perhaps it's time to consider the recommendation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44744606

hulitu• 11 months ago

Now they are apparently moving to defy the sanctions by ordering banks to continue providing services to the sanctioned judge despite the sanctions.

A sovereign country has its own laws and the laws only apply within its territory. There are countries who try to be the World Police but, sometimes, with limited success.

mmacvicarprett• 11 months ago

“those providing material support to human rights abusers face sanctions risk themselves.” The irony, this comes from a government with strong ties to Saudi Arabia, Israel and El Salvador.

general1726• 11 months ago

This is something what USA is taking for granted. Case and point - DMCA. American companies are sending DMCA takedown through their lawyers and then being surprised that nothing may happen when DMCA takedown is ignored by European company with no exposure to USA (services nor presence).

Brazil's top court rules US laws do not apply to its territory

Related Stories