Law, confronting the covid-19 pandemic and the Legal Amazon: some perspectives.

Abstract

Debating the context of the Legal Amazon in facing the Covid-19 pandemic, in the most critical period between 2020 and 2022, is a great challenge. This scenario presented political and legal consequences. The geographic area of ​​the region, which occupies almost 60% of the Brazilian territory, has its peculiarities and the governors sought, in most cases, joint actions to deal with the new coronavirus. The research problem proposed here is: how to understand, based on a political-legal discussion, the response to the pandemic by the states of the Legal Amazon? Literature review methods were used, with conceptual operationalization, going through the categories of Brazilian federalism, the judicialization of politics and the interactions of Law with the applicability of public policies; and the timeline, with the analysis of micro-episodes inserted in the context, between March 2020 and June 2021, one of the most critical periods of the pandemic in the country and in the Amazon and the cut-off chosen for the research. As conclusions, the difficulty of joint actions by subnational units in the Legal Amazon can be highlighted; the differences in how Pará and Amazonas – two main states in the region – face the pandemic; and the protagonism, internally, of Brazilian Law in the context of public policies, due to the absence of the Federal Government under Jair Bolsonaro.