Over the several years devoted to this book, many people and institutions have played a fundamental role. I need specially to thank Paula and Mateus for their permanent understanding and encouragement. I would like to express my special appreciation (gratitude) and thanks to Mireille Delmas-Marty for our joint research done during the last years and for our various meetings and discussions in Brazil, France, and the United States. Professor Delmas-Marty’s assistance was paramount, especially at the beginning of the research, to understand the importance of this subject and the new complexity of the international society. I would also like to thank Professors Gunther Teubner, Martti Koskenniemi, Onuma Oyasaki, Francisco Rezek, Genevie`ve Burdeau, He´le`ne Ruiz, Sandrine Maljean-Dubois, Ana Fla´via Barros Platiau, Andre´ Lupi, Paulo Emilio Vaugthier de Macedo, Wagner Menezes, Levi Jose´ do Amaral Junior, Luiz Eduardo Lacerda Abreu, Maria Elizabeth Rocha, Samantha Meyer-Pflug, Arnaldo de Oliveira Godoy, Carlos Bastide Horbach, and Kathia Chenut Martin for the many hours spent with each one of them on discussions related to different topics of this book. I would also like to thank my Ph.D. and Master’s degree students, who developed specific points of this research and make me learn about several aspects of which I was myself unaware. In particular, I would like to thank Ruitemberg Nunes Pereira, Gabriela Batista de Lima, and Isabel Gouveˆa for their contribution, critics, and help. I am especially grateful to Kenneth Worthy, Victoria Broadus, Charles Roberts, and Nick Bryner for helping me with translations and editing. I would moreover like to thank the Georgetown University, especially Mark Herlihy and Edith Brown-Weiss; the George Washington University, and the University of California, at Berkeley, especially Kate Jastram, who received me during my fellowship research period from 2012 to 2013 and who opened the doors for interaction with their research groups, thereby enabling me to participate in research and lecturing activities and to test the research hypotheses in different meetings.