Paradiplomacy: a reality more than a concept

In 2003, a few months before assuming the mandate of federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro, I was invited to create a “coordination of federative international relations” within the scope of the the Presidency of the Republic. The idea had come from the then Deputy Chief of Federative Affairs, Vicente Trevas, and I immediately found it fascinating. As a diplomat assigned to the Presidency of the Republic, I was responsible for mapping and supporting the international actions of the states and municipalities. It was the first time that the federal government perceived the international capillarity of subnational entities as a strategic asset for the federation as a whole. Ultimately, the “combined game” would certainly elevate the international insertion of the country as a whole, since one of the pillars of the current Globalization process is precisely the construction of communicating channels between the “local” and the “global” - also termed “glocalization”. In this context, I was surprised by the diplomatic efforts of states and municipalities to overcome challenges to their sustainable development through interaction and cooperation with their foreign counterparts. In service abroad in several embassies and consulates, I had already witnessed many examples of these initiatives, as well as, at times, regretting the absence of theoretical and practical diplomatic instruments on the part of their agents. The same lack, unfortunately, had been observed in the corporate diplomacy of our private entities. Specifically, in my passage through the presidency, I report here something that called my attention to the legal aspects of paradiplomacy and that led me to propose a constitutional amendment 'PEC' 475, in 2005. As responsible for the direct cooperation between about forty Brazilian municipalities and five Italian regions (Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Bologna and Umbria), I soon realized the inadequacy of our Federal Constitution to this irreversible phenomenon today.

As it involves foreign investments and financing, and is unable to honor international commitments with its own assets, Brazilian municipalities have turned to the federal government as their sponsor. It so happens that, in this case, the Brazilian Constitution does not allow the federal government to sign agreements with foreign sub-regions. On the Italian side, even though it was not a federation, the country had added to its constitutional text the permission for its regions to directly affirm international agreements. In short, Brasília, on behalf of the Brazilian cities, could only sign the agreement with Rome, while the latter had already delegated, by constitutional precept, international legal capacity to its regions.

The example revealed to me that, unlike neighboring Argentina and the group of federative republics of today, the Brazilian Constitution prevents such autonomy and subdues the international interest of its subnational entities to the circumstantial understanding of the Federal Government. It thus constitutes a flagrant legal-political anachronism that the Institute of Direct Diplomacy proposes to remedy.

Rio de Janeiro, 11 April 2021

André Costa