Luísa Netto joined the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University in 2023, after having worked for over a year at Utrecht University.

More information about Luisa -Pinto E Netto

Luísa Pinto e Netto came to the Netherlands in 2019 for a postdoctoral research position at the Amsterdam Centre for International Law (ACIL) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), under the supervision of Professor Yvonne Donders. In 2020, she continued her academic career at Leiden University, also as a postdoctoral researcher, under the supervision of Professor Wim Voermans.

Luísa is originally from Brazil, where she worked for over twenty years as a State Attorney for the state of Minas Gerais. In this role, she was active both in advisory and litigation departments, handling cases in the fields of constitutional and administrative law, public services, government procurement, administrative procedures, fundamental rights vis-à-vis public authorities, and civil service law. Alongside her legal practice, she taught administrative law at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais.

In 2015, Luísa obtained her PhD from the University of Lisbon, supervised by Professor Sérvulo Correia. Her dissertation, titled The Openness of the Fundamental Rights System of the Constitutional State, explored the structure and the evolutionary capacity of the fundamental rights system, particularly in relation to the recognition of new rights. This work is part of a broader series of publications on fundamental rights, with a special focus on rights in administrative relationships and social rights, published within the Portuguese-speaking academic community.

Before accepting her current position at Leiden University, Luísa spent six months as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance (REBO) at Utrecht University. As Assistant Professor at Leiden, she is engaged in teaching constitutional law in both bachelor's and master’s programmes. Regarding her research, since settling in the Netherlands, her work has focused on the role of fundamental rights in the Dutch constitutional order and the ongoing need to explore their evolutionary potential. Her research is particularly concerned with the development of new rights and the reinterpretation of existing rights in response to pressing societal, technological, and environmental challenges.

Against this background—and in view of the fact that economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR), such as the rights to housing, health, food, education, and social security, are still often regarded as ‘second-tier rights’ both nationally and internationally—Luísa has received a starters grant for a multi-year research project on ESCR. The project aims to develop a comprehensive research agenda that places social rights at the centre of fundamental rights discourse, particularly in relation to emerging and evolving rights. Rather than being framed around a single research question, the project encompasses a variety of research activities and outputs. It seeks to establish a research group, build new academic networks, and open innovative pathways for research in this field. The focus is on strengthening the legal protection and effectiveness of social rights, considering both their global dimension and their specific relevance to Dutch constitutional theory and practice. The project has both theoretical and practical impact. While social rights are not new, their repositioning at the core of constitutional thinking is essential to safeguarding human dignity in a rapidly changing world.

Luísa is an active member of the International Society for Public Law (ICON-S), where she serves on the Community and Engagement Committee. In this role, she contributes to pro bono initiatives aimed at fostering inclusivity and diversity within academia. She is also a co-coordinator of the Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights within the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR).