Announcements and updates for CELS Global Brazil 2026
Updates on the conference programme, accepted papers, keynotes, and logistics. The most recent items appear first.
With about two weeks to the opening, the conference team is reviewing the parallel-session room assignments, the gala dinner seating chart at D'Brescia Restaurant on June 8, and the airport transfer schedule for invited speakers. The full programme will be published on the schedule page in the days leading up to the conference.
The Dean of the University of Chicago Law School joins the keynote line-up with "Why Constitutions Fail", a paper co-authored with Mila Versteeg. The closing keynote takes place at Insper on the evening of June 10. Chilton also participates in the June 11 workshop on computational legal research.
Daniel L. Chen (Toulouse School of Economics, CNRS, and Hoover Institution at Stanford) and Corinna Coupette (Aalto University and ERC CompLex) confirmed their participation in the SELS Special Session, chaired by Conference Chair Ivan César Ribeiro. The session takes place during slot S1 on June 9 and addresses computational methods, text-as-data approaches, and the use of AI in legal research.
The Instituto CELS Latinoamérica panel on judicial independence and accountability brings together Andrea Castagnola (Visiting Professor UTDT, LawTransform CMI), Cristián Villalonga (PUC Chile), and Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar (ITESO, Guadalajara), chaired by Diego Werneck Arguelhes (Insper). The panel runs in slot S4 on June 10, with comparative perspectives across Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.
Registration remains open at standard rates. The presenter registration deadline for accepted authors is April 30. Financial aid award recipients receive specific instructions through the conference secretariat.
Open the registration page →The international scientific committee completed the review of one hundred and eighteen submissions. Thirty-nine papers were selected for presentation, distributed across thirteen scientific sessions and four parallel slots. The acceptance rate is approximately 33%. Authors were notified by e-mail; the full programme will be published on the parallel sessions page once room allocations are finalised.
See the submission summary →The VI Brazilian Conference on Law and Public Policy completed the selection for its in-person Research Reports track. Forty-two papers were selected for presentation at the Faculty of Law during the joint conference. The detailed list of selected papers is available on the CBDPP main site.
The financial assistance committee completed the review of twenty-two applications. Award and denial notifications were sent by e-mail through the conference secretariat. Recipients receive specific instructions for travel documentation and reimbursement procedures.
The Call for Papers for CELS Global Brazil 2026 closed after the deadline extension. One hundred and eighteen papers were submitted for the CELS scientific sessions, alongside two hundred and seventy-one abstracts for the joint VI CBDPP working groups. The scientific committee began the double-blind review process immediately.
Following requests from prospective participants, the submission deadline was extended from late February to March 9, 2026. The extension allows researchers more time to complete empirical analyses and prepare final drafts. No further extensions are anticipated.
The 2026 edition of CELS Global Brazil is held jointly with the VI Brazilian Conference on Law and Public Policy, organised by the Brazilian Research Network on Law and Public Policy (RedeDPP). The joint structure broadens the conference scope to include both empirical legal studies and law and public policy research. The two conferences share the venue and the schedule, with full cross-attendance between sessions.
CELS Global Brazil 2026 takes place June 8–10, 2026, in São Paulo. The main venue is the Faculty of Law of the University of São Paulo (Largo de São Francisco), with the closing keynote at Insper (Vila Olímpia). The conference is organised by CEOE/Unifesp in partnership with the Society for Empirical Legal Studies.