Brazil’s Supreme Court Finalizes Rejection of ‘Marco Temporal’ Land Law
Brazil’s Supreme Court Finalizes Rejection of ‘Marco Temporal’ Land Law

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), the country’s highest constitutional authority, has finalized its definitive ruling against the *Marco Temporal*, or “time-limit” thesis, for Indigenous land demarcation. The decision confirms that Indigenous territorial rights are “originários”—pre-existing and not dependent on the date the current Constitution was promulgated on October 5, 1988, dealing a major blow to the powerful Brazilian agribusiness lobby that had pushed for the restriction. The ruling effectively neutralizes the central provision of Law 14.701/2023, which the National Congress had passed to re-establish the time-limit after the STF first rejected the doctrine in 2023, setting the final legal framework for land ownership in the country.
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