A Socioambientalização das decisões da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos: o caso do povo Xucuru vs Brasil

Abstract

The present dissertation aims to demonstrate that within its contentious jurisdiction, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court) manifests a process of social environmentalism in its jurisprudence. The case study was combined with bibliographic and documentary reviews as a research methodology. The case object of the study is

the case of the Xucuru People vs Brazil. In the first chapter, the concept of socio- environmentalism is constructed (Souza Filho, 2002; Santilli, 2005; Diegues, 2008),

which will be used to understand the socio-environmental effect of the Inter-American Court. To this end, the historical approach to the origin of the socio-environmental movement, its impact on Brazilian legislation, and how socio-environmental conflicts give rise to the perspective of socio-environmental justice in Brazil are made. The socio-environmental issue originates in the colonisation period, from how the territory was exploited and the labour of traditional communities and populations. However, the socio-environmental movement is only consigned from the articulation of environmental and social movements in Brazil, in the period after the Military Regime that preceded the constituent assembly. The period of the Military Dictatorship in Brazil was marked by the predatory exploitation of the Amazon, affecting traditional populations and communities. After this period, the rubber tappers' movement, led by Chico Mendes, stood out for presenting a path of development in the Amazon region that was not predatory development. From this intersection of the articulation between social movements and environmental movements, new rights were born, which broke with the exacerbated protection of individual rights and included, in the constitutional

text, social rights and collective rights. Finally, the origin of the concept of Socio- Environmental Justice is discussed, which understands traditional communities as

agents of conflict, considering that they are agents who have another relationship with nature, in which what is human and what is a natural resource is not divided – and, therefore, they need to be actors of Socio-Environmental Justice, starring in the agenda. The second chapter deals with the history of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the techniques used by this Court to protect the environment, given the limitation of its jurisdiction. To this end, the techniques of "greening" are analysed (MAZZUOLI; TEIXEIRA, 2017), used by other International Courts, to demonstrate that the effect on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights is not a matter of greening its

decisions, but instead of a socio-environmental approach in the construction of its Jurisprudence, based on the concept of Socio-Environmental Justice (Moreira, 2017). In the third chapter, the paradigm case is presented, a dispute in the Court of Human Rights between the Xucuru People and Brazi, a signatory member state of the Court's contentious jurisdiction. The dispute has as its object the demarcation of the lands of the Xucuru People, who do not respect the principle of speed, and, in the face of legislative changes in the country, had the demarcation process postponed several times. Given the legislative change, which made it possible for third parties to contest

the demarcation, conflicts arose over the land object of the demarcation. The Inter- American Court of Human Rights judgment was signed in 2018 and, as of the date of

the judgment, the indigenous landfill had not suffered total disintrusion, and could not fully enjoy its territory. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised Brazil's obligation to end the demarcation process with the full disintrusion of indigenous territory from the perspective of communal property, recognising that the demarcated lands must belong entirely to the Xucuru People; in addition to recognising Brazil's duty to indemnify the Xucuru People for the unjustified extension of the process of demarcation of the territory of the Xucuru People.