The international human rights discourse as a strategic focus in socio-environmental conflicts: the case of hydro-electric dams in Brazil

Abstract

This article examines the mobilisation of human rights in campaigns against hydro-electric dams in Brazil. The symbolic and legal power of human rights has allowed activists to challenge official accounts of the impact of dams while deploying domestic and international legal frameworks. Although the politicisation of natural resources in Brazil has limited the effectiveness of anti-dam mobilisations, an appeal to the human rights agenda has translated into a powerful critique of the social impact of Brazil’s development agenda, thereby making a moral and legal claim for justice.

Keywords:

• environment
• human rights
• hydro-electric dams
• Brazil
• energy politics
• activism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Marieke Riethof is a lecturer in Latin American politics at the University of Liverpool. Her past research and publications focused on political strategies of the labour movement in Brazil, including the Latin American regional context. Her most recent research concentrates on Brazilian foreign policy in the context of international relations in Latin America, examining traditional and non-traditional policy areas, including environmental politics, democracy and human rights. A second project deals with the role of transnational solidarity movements and exile in the opposition to military dictatorship in Chile. Marieke has a PhD in political science and international relations from the University of Amsterdam.

ORCID

Marieke Riethof http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8297-5471

Notes

1. Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI), Relatório da expedição Estação Ecológica Mujica Nava/Serra dos Três Irmãos para levantamento de índios isolados, ref. no. 12, Porto Velho: FUNAI, 2009.

2. Leonardo Sakamoto, ‘Governo insere 52 nomes na “lista suja” do trabalho escravo’, 30 December 2001, http://blogdosakamoto.blogosfera.uol.com.br/2011/12/30/governo-insere-52-nomes-na-lista-suja-do-trabalho-escravo/ (accessed 23 March 2015).

3. Bruno Fonseca and Jessica Mota, ‘Trabalhadores reféns em obras bilionários na Amazônia’, Diario Liberdade, 13 December 2013; Roberto Véras, ‘Brasil em obras, peões em luta, sindicatos surpreendidos’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 103 (2014): 118.

4. The police force in question, the Força Nacional (FN), was established in 2004 as a federal force – police forces in Brazil are organised at state level – to coordinate action in case of public security emergencies. Critics have argued that the FN, being directly controlled by the president, does not have the same level of democratic control as other police forces and that its mandate now includes security at private enterprises, such as the Belo Monte dam. See Ciro Barros, ‘Pela Ordem’, APública, 25 April 2014, http://apublica.org/2014/04/pela-ordem/ (accessed 28 April 2016).

5. On the scope of the networks involved in socio-environmental activism in Brazil, see Kathryn Hochstetler and Margaret E. Keck, Greening Brazil: Environmental Activism in State and Society (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), Ch. 5; Franklin D. Rothman and Pamela E. Oliver, ‘From Local to Global: The Anti-Dam Movement in Southern Brazil, 1979–1992’, Mobilization 4, no. 1 (1999): 41–57; Philip M. Fearnside, ‘Dams in the Amazon: Belo Monte and Brazil’s Hydroelectric Development of the Xingu River Basin’, Environmental Management 38, no. 1 (2006): 16–27; Eve Z. Bratman, ‘Passive Revolution in the Green Economy: Activism and the Belo Monte Dam’, International Environmental Agreements 15, no. 1 (2015): 61–77.

6. David Harvey, ‘The “New” Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession’, Socialist Register (2004): 75.

7. Barbara Hogenboom, ‘Depoliticized and Repoliticized Minerals in Latin America’, Journal of Developing Societies 28, no. 2 (2012): 136–7.

8. Ministério do Desenvolvimento, Secretaria de Comércio Exterior, Exportação brasileira, produto por fator agregado (Brasília: Ministério do Desenvolvimento/SECEX, 2015).

9. Alberto Acosta, ‘Extractivism and Neoextractivism: Two Sides of the Same Curse’, in Beyond Development: Alternative Visions from Latin America, ed. Miriam Lang and Dunia Mokrani (Amsterdam: Transnational Institute, 2013): 71–2.

10. Maristella Svampa, ‘“Consenso de commodities” y lenguages de valorización en América Latina’, Nueva Sociedad no. 244 (2013): 34–5.

11. Jean Grugel and Pía Riggirozzi, ‘Post-Neoliberalism in Latin America: Rebuilding and Reclaiming the State after Crisis’, Development and Change 43, no. 1 (2012): 2–3.

12. Hans-Jürgen Burchardt and Kristina Dietz, ‘(Neo-)extractivism – A New Challenge for Development Theory from Latin America’, Third World Quarterly 35, no. 3 (2014): 470.

13. Hogenboom, ‘Depoliticized and Repoliticized Minerals’, 152; for the Brazilian case, see also Anthony Hall and Sue Branford, ‘Development, Dams and Dilma: The Saga of Belo Monte’, Critical Sociology 38, no. 6: 856–7.

14. Eduardo Gudynas, ‘Estado compensador y nuevos extractivismos: Las ambivalencias del progresismo sudamericano’, Nueva Sociedad 237 (2012): 128–46.

15. Helle Abelvik-Lawson, ‘Sustainable Development for Whose Benefit? Brazil’s Economic Power and Human Rights Violations in the Amazon and Mozambique’, International Journal of Human Rights 18, no. 7–8 (2014): 801–3.

16. Eduardo Gudynas, ‘Climate Change and Capitalism’s Ecological Fix in Latin America’, Critical Currents 6 (2009): 40.

17. Svampa, ‘“Consenso de commodities”’, 41.

18. Ibid., 35.

19. Deborah McGregor, ‘Living Well with the Earth: Indigenous Rights and the Environment’, in Handbook of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, ed. Damien Short and Corinne Lennox (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016), 169.

20. Kathryn Hochstetler, ‘The Politics of Environmental Licensing: Energy Projects of the Past and Future in Brazil’, Studies in Comparative International Development 46 (2011): 353.

21. For a map of the planned expansion of hydro-electric power generation, see Ministério de Minas e Energia, Secretaria de Planejamento e Desenvolvimento Energético, Plano decenal de expansão de energia 2024 (Brasília: Ministério de Minas/PPE, 2015), 392, http://www.epe.gov.br/PDEE/Relat%C3%B3rio%20Final%20do%20PDE%202024.pdf (accessed 28 April 2016).

22. Ministério de Minas, Plano decenal de expansão, 82–4, 95.

23. Human Rights Council (HRC), Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: Brazil, A/HRC/21/11 (Geneva: Human Rights Council, 2012), 14.

24. Marieke Riethof, ‘Brazil and the International Politics of Climate Change: Leading by Example?’, in Provincialising Nature: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Politics of the Environment in Latin America, ed. Michela Coletta and Malayna Raftopoulos (London: ILAS, 2016).

25. Secretaria de Direitos Humanos (SDH), Comissão Especial ‘Atingidos por Barragens’ (Brasília: Secretaria de Direitos Humanos, 2010), 15.

26. See Fiocruz, ‘Mapa de conflitos envolvendo injustiça ambiental e saúde no Brasil’, Fundação Osvaldo Cruz, http://www.conflitoambiental.icict.fiocruz.br/ (accessed 25 August 2015); Comissao Pastoral da Terra (CPT), Conflitos no campo Brasil 2013 (Goiânia: CPT, 2014), 77; Philip M. Fearnside, ‘Brazil’s São Luiz do Tapajós Dam: The Art of Cosmetic Environmental Impact Assessments’, Water Alternatives 8, no. 3 (2015): 378–81. For the case of Belo Monte, see Secretaria de Direitos Humanos (SDH)/Conselho de Defesa dos Direitos da Pessoa Humana, Relatório de impressões sobre as violações dos direitos humanos na região conhecida como ‘Terra do Meio’ no Estado do Pará, Commissão Especial ‘Terra do Meio’, Brasília, November 2011, http://www.xinguvivo.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Relat%C3%B3rio-CDDPH.pdf (accessed 21 November 2015), 17–18.

27. SDH, Comissão Especial, 16; CPT, Conflitos no Campo. On the criminalisation of protest in Brazil in recent years, see Article 19, Brazil’s Own Goal: Protests, Police and the World Cup (London, 2014); UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Brazilian Anti-Terrorism Law too Broad, UN Experts Warn’, 4 November 2015, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16709&LangID=E (accessed 4 November 2015). 

28. Sam Adelman, ‘Rethinking Human Rights: The Impact of Climate Change on the Dominant Discourse’, in Human Rights and Climate Change, ed. Stephen Humphreys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 161.

29. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on Civil and Political Rights.

30. Lillian Aponte Miranda, ‘Introduction to Indigenous Peoples’ Status and Rights under International Human Rights Law’, in Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: The Search for Legal Remedies, ed. Randall S. Abate and Elizabeth A. Kronk (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2013), 56–7.

31. Stuart A. Scheingold, The Politics of Rights: Lawyers, Public Policy and Political Change (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004); Henry Shue, ‘Global Environment and International Inequality’, in Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, ed. Stephen M. Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 102–5; Bradley Parks and J. Timmons Roberts, ‘Climate Change, Social Theory and Justice’, Theory, Culture and Society 27, no. 2–3 (2010): 134–66.

32. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Sectoral Consultation Entitled ‘Human Rights and the Extractive Industry’, 10–11 November 2005, E/CN.4/2006/92 (Geneva: UNHCHR, 2005), 4.

33. An overview of the Brazilian regulatory framework for the management of social-environmental issues in the energy sector since 1986 can be found in the Secretaria de Direitos Humanos report on the social and human rights effects of dams: SDH, Comissão Especial, 18–19. Other relevant international frameworks are the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams’ final report: World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making (London: Earthscan, 2000); see World Bank, The World Bank Experience with Large Dams: A Preliminary Review of Impacts (Washington DC: World Bank, 1996), for a review of the impacts of large dam projects. Although not ratified by Brazil, the Aarhus Convention establishes the right to access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making and access to justice. For a discussion on the convention’s relevance for Brazil, see Valerio de Oliveira Mazzuoli and Patryck de Araújo Ayala, ‘Cooperação internacional para a preservação do meio ambiente: O direito brasileiro e a convenção de Aarhus’, Revista Direito GV 8, no. 1 (2012): 297–328.

34. The question about whose rights are recognised reflects McCann’s point that social movement struggles are often about ‘the very meaning of indeterminate, contradictory legal principles’. Michael McCann, ‘Law and Social Movements: Contemporary Perspectives’, Annual Review of Law and Social Science no. 2 (2006): 25.

35. Hochstetler, ‘The Politics of Environmental Licensing’, 353.

36. Cited in SDH, Relatório de impressões, 15.

37. Fearnside, ‘Brazil’s São Luiz do Tapajós Dam’, 378–81.

38. Andréa Zhouri, ‘From “Participation” to “Negotiation”: Suppressing Dissent in Environmental Conflict Resolution in Brazil’, in The International Handbook of Political Ecology, ed. Raymond L. Bryant (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2015), 454–5. See also Amanda M. Fulmer, ‘A Strange Right: Consultation, Mining, and Indigenous Mobilization in Latin America’, in The Uses and Misuses of Human Rights: A Critical Approach to Advocacy, ed. George Andreopoulos and Zehra Arat (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 69.

39. Sophie Thériault, ‘Environmental Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’, in Research Handbook on Human Rights and the Environment, ed. Anna Grear and Louis J. Kotze (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2015), 311.

40. Fernanda C. de Oliveira Franco and Maria L. Alencar Mayer Feitos, ‘Desenvolvimento e direitos humanos: Marcas de inconstitucionalidade no processo de Belo Monte’, Revista Direito 9, no. 1 (2013): 96; see also Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya: Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples, A/HRC/24/41 (Geneva: Human Rights Council, 2013), 13–14.

41. Scheingold, The Politics of Rights.

42. McCann, ‘Law and Social Movements’, 25.

43. Peter D. Burdon, ‘Environmental Human Rights: A Constructive Critique’, in Research Handbook on Human Rights and the Environment, ed. Anna Grear and Louis J. Kotze (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2015), 62, 73.

44. Adelman, ‘Rethinking Human Rights’, 167.

45. McCann, ‘Law and Social Movements’, 22.

46. The following are examples of UN documents focusing on human rights and extractivism: UNHCHR, Promotion and Protection; HRC, Report of the Special Rapporteur.

47. To date the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has a Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1997), while also drawing on the American Convention on Human Rights, its own resolutions regarding indigenous issues since the early 1970s, and other international human rights instruments such as UNDRIPS and ILO Convention 169. For a comprehensive overview relevant to the right to land and natural resources, see Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Rights over their Ancestral Lands and Natural Resources, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.Doc. 56/09 (Washington, DC: IACHR, 2009).

48. Organization of American States, Report of the Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment on its Efforts in the Field of Human Rights and the Environment, CP/CAJP-2100/03, 14 November 2003, OAS Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs, http://www.oas.org/en/sedi/dsd/ELPG/Docs/report_human_rights.pdf (accessed 5 November 2015), 2.

49. See IACHR, Comunidades indígenas da Bacia do Rio Xingu, Pará, Brasil, Precautionary Measures 382/10 (Washington, DC: IACHR, 2011); IACHR, ‘Indigenous Peoples Ingaricó, Macuxi, Wapichana, Patamona and Taurepang in Raposa Serra do Sol, Roraima State Brazil’ (Washington, DC: IACHR, 2004).

50. OAS, Report of the Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment, 2.

51. UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Human Rights and the Environment (Geneva: OHCHR and UNEP, 2012), 17–18; Fergus MacKay, ‘The Rights of Indigenous Peoples in International Law’, in Human Rights and the Environment: Conflicts and Norms in a Globalizing World, ed. Lyuba Zarsky (London: Earthscan, 2002), 17–18; Linda H. Leib, Human Rights and the Environment: Philosophical, Theoretical and Legal Perspectives (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2011), 74–5.

52. Telma Monteiro, ‘Dardanelos e Belo Monte: A história se repete’, EcoDebate: Cidadania & Meio Ambiente, 3 August 2010, http://www.ecodebate.com.br/2010/08/03/dardanelos-e-belo-monte-a-historia-se-repete-artigo-de-telma-monteiro/ (accessed 3 November 2015).

53. Fearnside, ‘Brazil’s São Luiz do Tapajós Dam’, 391.

54. Hochstetler, ‘The Politics of Environmental Licensing’, 355.

55. Ministério Público do Estado de Mato Grosso, ‘Suspensos efeitos do EIA/RIMA para construção da hidrelétrica Dardanelos’, 23 September 2005, http://www.mpmt.mp.br/imprime.php?cid=40476&sid=58 (accessed 3 November 2015).

56. Bruno Fonseca and Jessica Mota, ‘As pegadas do BNDES na Amazônia’, APública, 15 October 2013, http://apublica.org/2013/10/investimentos-b,ndes-em-infraestrutura-na-amazonia-caso-da-hidreletrica-de-dardanelos/ (accessed 3 November 2015).

57. Gilberto Azanha, ‘Estudo socioeconômico sobre as terras e povos indígenas situadas na área de influência do AHE Dardanelos, no Rio Aripuanã’, Centro de Trabalho Indigenista, November 2004, http://bd.trabalhoindigenista.org.br/sites/default/files/Azanha_AHE-Dardanelos-Componente-Indigena.pdf (accessed 3 November 2015).

58. Fiocruz, ‘Povos indígenas de Aripuanã lutam contra instalação de hidrelétrica’, http://www.conflitoambiental.icict.fiocruz.br/index.php?pag=ficha&cod=345 (accessed 3 November 2015).

59. Zachary Hurwitz, ‘Another Indigenous Tragedy Highlights the Inviability of Amazonian Dams’, International Rivers Network, 29 July 2010, https://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/258/another-indigenous-tragedy-highlights-the-inviability-of-amazonian-dams (accessed 3 November 2015); Fonseca and Mota, ‘As pegadas do BNDES’.

60. Fiocruz, ‘Povos indígenas de Aripuanã’; Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI), ‘Ocupação da usina Dardanelos: Grito aos surdos’, CIMI Regional Mato Gross, 28 July 2010, http://www.cimi.org.br/site/pt-br/?system=news&action=read&id=4830 (accessed 3 November 2015).

61. In particular, concerns have focused on the dam’s operational capacity during the dry season, which is expected to be 10%. For a useful summary of the debate on the economic viability of the Belo Monte dam, see Eve Z. Bratman, 'Contradictions of Green Development: Human Rights and Environmental Norms in Light of Belo Monte Dam Activism', Journal of Latin American Studies 46, no. 2 (2014): 269–71.

62. Instituto Socioambiental, ‘Especial Belo Monte: A polêmica da usina Belo Monte’, http://www.socioambiental.org/esp/bm/hist.asp (accessed 21 February 2012); Fearnside, ‘Dams in the Amazon’, 20–3; Sabrina McCormick, ‘The Brazilian Anti-Dam Movement: Knowledge Contestation and Communicative Action’, Organization Environment 19, no. 3 (2006): 321–46.

63. A comprehensive analysis can be found in Hochstetler, ‘The Politics of Environmental Licensing’.

64. Painel de Especialistas, Análise crítica do Estudo de Impacto Ambiental do Aproveitamento Hidrelétrico de Belo Monte, Belém, 29 October 2009, http://www.socioambiental.org/banco_imagens/pdfs/Belo_Monte_Painel_especialistas_EIA.pdf (accessed 5 November 2015).

65. Hall and Branford, ‘Development, Dams and Dilma’, 854.

66. Fearnside, ‘Dams in the Amazon’, 3.

67. Minority Rights Group International, State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012: Focus on Land Rights and Natural Resources (London: Minority Rights Group International, 2012), 94–6.

68. JusBrasil, ‘TRF autoriza o leilão da usina Belo Monte’, http://expresso-noticia.jusbrasil.com.br/noticias/2156721/trf-autoriza-o-leilao-da-usina-belo-monte (accessed 5 November 2015).

69. IACHR, Comunidades indígenas.

70. Itamaraty, Solicitação da Comissão Interamericana de Direitos Humanos (CIDH) da OEA, Press Release, 5 April 2011 (Brasília: Itamaraty).

71. Républica Federativa do Brasil, Comunidades tradicionais da Bacia do Rio Xingu, Pará: Informações do estado brasileiro, 25 April 2011, http://www.xinguvivo.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Resposta_do_Estado_MC_030520111.pdf (accessed 6 November 2015).

72. Itamaraty, Solicitação da Comissão.

73. Républica Federativa do Brasil, ‘Comunidades tradicionais’, 24.

74. IACHR, Comunidades indígenas.

75. IBAMA, ‘Ibama autoriza a instalação da Usina de Belo Monte’, 1 June 2011, http://www.ibama.gov.br/publicadas/ibama-autoriza-a-instalacao-da-usina-de-belo-monte (accessed 21 November 2015).

76. ILO, ‘Follow-up to the Recommendations of the Tripartite Committee, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169)’, 2012, http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:13100:0::NO::P13100_COMMENT_ID:2700476 (accessed 3 November 2015).

77. Christiane Peres, ‘Obras de Belo Monte são paralisadas até que consultas aos povos indígenas sejam feitas pelo Congresso’, 15 August 2012, Instituto Socioambiental, http://site-antigo.socioambiental.org/nsa/detalhe?id=3644 (accessed 6 November 2015).

78. Christiane Peres, ‘Ayres Britto acata pedido da AGU e obras de Belo Monte são retomadas’, 28 August 2012, Instituto Socioambiental, http://site-antigo.socioambiental.org/nsa/detalhe?id=3656 (accessed 6 November 2015).

79. Alison Brysk, ‘“Hearts and Minds”: Bringing Symbolic Politics Back in’, Polity 27, no. 4 (1995): 561.

80. ‘Xingu+23, 15.06: Liberando o Xingu’, 17 June 2012, http://amazonia.org.br/2012/06/xingu-23-15-06-liberando-o-xingu/ (accessed 10 November 2015); Abelvik-Lawson, ‘Sustainable Development’, 807.

81. Author’s research notes, Rio de Janeiro, 19 June 2012.

82. Ibid., June 2012.

83. For an analysis of the role of the BNDES in financing development projects, see Fonseca and Mota, ‘As pegadas do BNDES’.

84. ‘Protesto reúne mais de mil indígenas diante do BNDES’, 19 June 2012, O Estado de São Paulo.

85. Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (ABIP), ‘Carta do Rio de Janeiro: Declaração final do IX Acampamento Terra Livre – Bom viver/Vida plena’, Rio de Janeiro, 15–22 June 2012, http://blogapib.blogspot.nl/2012/06/documento-final-do-ix-acampamento-terra.html (accessed 6 November 2012).

86. The following video depicts the protests at Rio+20 and the exchange with government representatives outside Riocentro: Relatório Áudio Visual: Acampamento Terra Livre, Rio+20, June 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4sTminBWFY (accessed 6 November 2015); Renato Santana, ‘Depois de protesto, indígenas conseguem entrar na Rio+20 para entregar reivindicações’, Conselho Indigenista Missionário, 21 June 2012, http://www.cimi.org.br/site/pt-br/?system=news&action=read&id=6348 (accessed 6 November 2015).

87. Renato Santana, ‘Informe no. 1.020: Ministro Gilberto Carvalho admite ausência de consulta, mas que obra da UHE Belo Monte seguirá’, Conselho Indigenista Missionário, 22 June 2012, http://www.cimi.org.br/site/pt-br/?system=news&action=read&id=6350 (accessed 6 November 2015).

88. ‘Outcry as Brazil Authorizes Operation of the Belo Monte Dam’, 26 November 2015, Earth First Newswire, http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2015/11/26/outcry-as-brazil-authorizes-operation-of-the-belo-monte-dam/ (accessed 28 November 2015); Letter from João Gonçalves da Costa, President of FUNAI to IBAMA, Brasília, 12 November 2015, available from http://www.funai.gov.br/arquivos/conteudo/ascom/2015/img/11-nov/oficio587.pdf (accessed 28 November 2015).