Luísa Pinto e Netto is an assistant professor at Leiden University specialized in fundamental rights, with a particular focus on social rights. Following her career as a state attorney in Brazil and a PhD on the development of fundamental rights, she is building a research agenda in the Netherlands centred on the renewal and strengthening of fundamental and social rights. She teaches constitutional law and fundamental rights at both bachelor’s and master’s level. She is also actively engaged in the academic community, notably as co-founder and co-coordinator of the Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights within the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR), where she promotes collaboration, inclusivity and a deeper scholarly dialogue on emerging and social rights.

More information about Luisa Pinto E Netto

Luísa Pinto e Netto came to the Netherlands in 2019 for postdoctoral research 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 path at Leiden University as a postdoctoral fellow, supervised by Professor Wim Voermans.

Luísa is originally from Brazil, where she spent twenty years serving as a state attorney for the State of Minas Gerais. In that capacity, she worked both in advisory roles and litigation, handling matters related to constitutional and administrative law, public services, public procurement, administrative procedures, fundamental rights in the public sphere, and public employment law. She also taught public law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais.

In 2015, Luísa obtained her PhD from the University of Lisbon under the supervision of Professor Sérvulo Correia. Her dissertation, The Openness of the Fundamental Rights System in the Constitutional State, examined the structure and evolutionary capacity of systems of fundamental rights, with particular attention to the incorporation of new rights. This work forms part of a broader series of publications on fundamental rights, particularly rights in administrative relations and social rights, within the Portuguese-speaking academic community.

Before joining Leiden University, she spent a year and a half as assistant professor at the Faculty of Law, Economics, Governance and Organization (REBO) at Utrecht University. As an assistant professor in Leiden, Luísa is dedicated to teaching, particularly in constitutional law at both bachelor’s and master’s level. In the master’s programme, she is coordinator and lecturer of the course Constitutional Issues in European Context, which is organised annually around an overarching theme and addresses major contemporary constitutional questions. The theme for 2025/26 is democracy. Starting in 2025, she also coordinates the bachelor lecture series on human rights.

Research

Since settling in the Netherlands, Luísa’s research has focused on the role of fundamental rights within the Dutch constitutional order and the ongoing need to explore the evolutionary potential of (fundamental) rights. Her work investigates the development of new rights and the reinterpretation of existing ones, with particular attention to pressing social, technological and ecological challenges.

Against this background, and in view of the persistent under-recognition of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) in both national and international law, Luísa received a starter grant (together with Gert Jan Geertjes) for a multi-year research project dedicated to ESCR. The project aims to develop a research agenda that places social rights at the centre of the broader system of fundamental rights, with a specific focus on emerging and evolving rights. It comprises various research activities, supports the formation of a research group, and fosters the creation of new networks and research lines. The project seeks to strengthen the legal protection and effectiveness of social rights, considering both global frameworks and their particular relevance to the Dutch constitutional order.

In addition, Luísa is co-applicant (with Professor Daniel Wunder Hachem) of the research project Social rights, artificial intelligence and challenges to equality: a comparison between Brazil and the Netherlands, awarded at the end of 2024 under the CNPq/MCTI/FNDCT Call No. 22/2024, Programa Conhecimento Brasil, and funded in part by the Brazilian agency CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), the national body responsible for supporting and improving the quality of academic research and higher education in Brazil. This project brings together Brazilian and Dutch scholars to explore how social rights can be protected in an era of rapid technological change and growing inequality. It complements and strengthens Luísa’s broader agenda on social rights, new rights, and constitutional evolution, drawing on her networks beyond Europe and the English-speaking academic world.

Participation in the academic community

In 2024, Luísa, Nathalie Schnabl and Lucas Dikkers, together with many other experts in the Netherlands, founded the Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights within the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR). In September 2025, they will host an international conference in Leiden to launch her research project and the working group.

After many years of publishing for the Portuguese-speaking world, Luísa now contributes to dialogues on new rights and social rights through publications in English and Dutch as well. In addition to writing and teaching, she considers organising and actively participating in academic events an essential part of her scholarly role. She also attaches great importance to communicating academic insights to broader audiences, through blogs and contributions to the press, in order to broaden and democratise societal conversations on fundamental rights.

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

Publications