Mediação socioambiental na administração pública: critérios de legitimidade, participação e controle dos acordos.

Abstract

The consolidation of administrative consensuality has shifted the debate on socio-environmental mediation: it is no longer sufficient to state that mediation is faster, more flexible, or less costly than judicial proceedings. In disputes involving diffuse interests, affected communities, scientific uncertainty, and public authorities, the central issue is to define the legal and institutional conditions that make a settlement legitimate, reviewable, and environmentally adequate. This article investigates the extent to which Public Administration may take part in socio-environmental mediation without turning consensuality into an improper waiver of environmental protection. It adopts a qualitative approach, a hypothetical-deductive method, and bibliographic and documentary research, examining the Brazilian Constitution, the Code of Civil Procedure, Law No. 13,140/2015, the Introduction to Brazilian Law Act, Decree No. 9,830/2019, CNJ Resolution No. 125/2010, Decree No. 12,091/2024, and the federal institutional framework for consensual dispute resolution. The article argues that the non-disposable nature of the right to an ecologically balanced environment does not prevent negotiation over means, deadlines, remedial measures, and governance arrangements, provided that the protective core of the right is preserved. As a result, it proposes a validation matrix based on authority, adequate participation, technical support, consequence-sensitive reasoning, compatible publicity, environmental proportionality, and monitoring. It concludes that socio-environmental mediation expands access to justice only when subject to safeguards capable of neutralizing asymmetries, preventing regression, and ensuring verifiable implementation of the settlement.