Bruno Dantas (Spring)

Senior Global Fellow from Practice & Government
Brazil
bd2700@nyu.edu

Dr. Bruno Dantas is a Senior Global Fellow from Practice & Government associated with the Center on Civil Justice at NYU. He holds a PhD in Law and an LLM from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. His scholarly focus lies in Transnational Class Actions and Comparative Legal Mechanisms for Access to Justice in Complex Litigation Systems. Utilizing a comparative law approach, Dr. Dantas investigates class action and mass litigation frameworks in Brazil and the United States, drawing insights from England, Germany, and the European Union. His work examines the interplay of legal orders in collective disputes, assessing the efficacy of class actions in addressing mass claims while safeguarding fundamental rights.

Dr. Dantas holds a lifetime appointment as Minister of the Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU). In this role, he oversees comprehensive financial, performance, and compliance audits, and evaluates the legal and economic structures of public-private partnerships (PPP) and concession projects. During his presidency, which concluded in December 2024, he established a mediation chamber at TCU to resolve unbalanced public contracts, thereby enhancing legal certainty and predictability. His tenure was also marked by international recognition, as he served on the United Nations Board of Auditors and chaired the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).

In previous roles, Dr. Dantas served as Head of the Legislative Counsel Office of the Federal Senate and as Counselor on the National Council of Justice and the National Council of the Prosecutor’s Office.

A prolific scholar, Dr. Dantas has contributed to Civil Procedure, Regulatory Law, Administrative Law, and Constitutional Law. His works include a book co-authored with Professor Dr. Teresa Arruda Alvim on appeals to high courts, stare decisis, and comparative civil procedure, now in its seventh edition, and the translation of Principles of Aggregate Litigation into Portuguese. He played a role in drafting Brazil's new Code of Civil Procedure (2015) as a member of the Legal Experts Committee.

Dr. Dantas imparts his knowledge as a Law Professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, teaching in the JSD, LLM., and JD programs. His academic journey has been enriched through visiting fellowships at institutions where he conducted specific research projects: at the Institute de Recherche Juridique de la Sorbonne (Paris), he investigated alternative dispute resolution in the infrastructure sector, particularly PPPs and concessions from an audit court perspective, providing the theoretical background for the mediation chamber he later created at TCU; at Cardozo School of Law (New York), he examined the crisis of class actions and Brazil’s legislative responses, drawing comparisons with the UK’s Group Litigation Order and Germany’s Musterverfahren; and at the Max Planck Institute for International, European, and Regulatory Procedural Law (Luxembourg), he furthered these studies.

Center Affiliation: Center on Civil Justice
Research Project: Transnational Class Actions: A Comparative Study of Legal Mechanisms for Access to Justice in Complex Litigation Systems