Deglobalization, Multilateralism, and the Limits of Global Human Rights Governance: The Brazilian Case

This article examines the crisis of multilateralism and its implications for the effectiveness of international human rights regimes in the context of contemporary processes of deglobalization. It argues that this crisis should not be understood merely as a conjunctural weakening of multilateral institutions or as a problem of state non-compliance, but as a revealing moment that exposes the structural limits of a model of global governance grounded in liberal juridification and the universalisation of normative standards. The central research question addresses the extent to which the crisis of multilateralism undermines the effectiveness of international human rights regimes, taking into account not only their institutional design but also their political and democratic foundations. The article advances the hypothesis that the current crisis operates less as a cause of ineffectiveness and more as a condition that reveals the fragility of global constitutionalism, whose normative authority depends on political conditions it cannot itself guarantee. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative and theoretically informed critical approach, based on an interdisciplinary review of the literature in international law and global governance, combined with an in-depth analysis of the Brazilian case. Brazil is examined not as an exceptional or deviant case, but as a paradigmatic instance that illustrates the structural tensions underlying global human rights governance. The findings indicate that, despite a high level of formal adherence to international human rights treaties, Brazil exhibits selective, fragmented, and politically contingent patterns of implementation. This dynamic highlights the centrality of domestic mediation in shaping normative effectiveness and demonstrates the limitations of approaches that equate effectiveness with formal compliance or institutional sophistication. The article concludes that the persistence of international human rights norms coexists with a form of effectiveness that is structurally conditioned by political factors and increasingly subject to contestation. In a post-liberal context marked by deglobalization, the effectiveness of human rights regimes cannot be secured through juridification alone, but depends on political legitimacy that remains unevenly distributed within the international system.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.