Social Systems Theory and Communication of Exception: Climate Change in the Jurisprudence of the Brazilian Supreme Court

Abstract

The climate emergency constitutes one of the most complex challenges faced by contemporary society, placing increasing pressure on the classical modes of coordination among science, politics, economics, and law. The global, diffuse, and structurally incalculable nature of environmental risks exposes the limits of traditional categories in constitutional doctrine and the normative languages usually mobilized to govern the future. In this context, the climate jurisprudence of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) assumes a central role by recognizing the constitutional character of the duties of mitigation, adaptation, and intergenerational protection, thereby reconfiguring how the State and society observe and process the environmental crisis. To understand this transformation, Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory offers a robust conceptual framework capable of explaining not only the content of judicial decisions but also the communicative dynamics that make them possible. By conceiving law as an autopoietic system that operates through its own codes and programs, Luhmann emphasizes that environmental problems do not enter the legal system directly: they become relevant only when translated into legal communication. The climate crisis, understood as a phenomenon of hypercomplexity, is converted into a constitutional issue to the extent that law selects certain irritations originating from science, politics, and civil society and stabilizes them in the form of normative expectations. This movement can be described as a “climate exception communication.” The inquiry undertaken in this study aims to examine how the STF’s decisions reveal a process of semantic construction surrounding the crisis.