(São Paulo) – The government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made important progress in protecting the Amazon, women's rights and other rights in 2023, but neither adequately addressed the chronic problem of police violence nor consistently defended human rights in foreign policy, Human Rights Watch said today as it released its 2024 World Report.
“President Lula ended his first year in office with disagreements over human rights,” said César Muñoz, director of Human Rights Watch’s Brazil office. “He has reversed some of his predecessor's human rights policies, but important challenges remain, such as the excessive use of force by police, which disproportionately affects Brazil's black population, and a foreign policy that does not promote human rights,” a coherent one Way.”
The 34th edition of Human Rights Watch's 740-page World Report 2024 analyzes human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In the introductory essay, the Executive Director of Tirana Hassan notes that 2023 has been a year of strong impact, not only in terms of the repression of human rights and atrocities in the context of wars, but also in the exercise of transactional diplomacy and the selective outrage that some governments expressed, which entailed significant costs for the rights of those who were not party to these agreements. However, he notes that there have also been glimmers of hope that show that another path is possible and calls on governments to consistently uphold their human rights obligations.
President Lula has reversed some of the disastrous anti-environmental policies of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Under the previous government, deforestation in the Amazon increased by 53%. In 2023, the first year of Lula's government, deforestation in the Amazon fell by 50% compared to 2022, according to deforestation warnings from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), updated on December 29.
President Lula also broke with Bolsonaro's hostile stance toward indigenous rights by resuming the transfer of ownership of indigenous lands and appointing the first female indigenous leaders to lead a newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and Brazil's Agency for Indigenous Affairs. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt to restrict indigenous peoples' rights to their traditional lands. However, Congress responded by approving a bill contradicting that decision and subsequently revoking the President's veto of that bill.
Lula's government improved Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals and sent Congress to approve the Escazú Accord, a regional treaty that requires governments in Latin America and the Caribbean to take action to protect environmentalists and increase access to information and public participation in environmental matters.
Instead, the government failed to curb the destruction of the tropical savannah known as the Cerrado, where deforestation increased by 43% in 2023, according to deforestation warnings from the National Institute for Space Research. In addition, the government plans to significantly increase oil and gas production over the next decade. In December, President Lula announced during the annual UN climate conference COP 28 that Brazil intends to join the OPEC+ group of oil producing nations as an observer.
Lula's government submitted and subsequently passed a bill to Congress to ensure equal pay for men and women. It also repealed a rule that required health professionals to report cases of rape survivors seeking to terminate a pregnancy to police. An initiative to promote sexual and reproductive health education in schools was also resumed.
Although Lula's government created a new ministry of racial equality, it has not taken strong action against police violence, which disproportionately affects the black population. Since 2018, police in Brazil have killed more than 6,000 people every year. More than 80% of victims in 2022 were black. From January to June 2023, police lethality increased in 16 states compared to the same period in 2022, according to data from the non-governmental organization Brazilian Forum for Public Security.
Over the last decade, Human Rights Watch has documented serious failures in investigations by the Civil Police, the government's investigative agency, including the deaths of 28 people during a police operation in São Paulo in 2023.
Although governors are responsible for state police forces, the federal government has the authority to coordinate with states and localities, develop national public policies, and ensure that federal funding for public safety is conditioned on reducing police lethality. According to Human Rights Watch, Lula's government is currently reviewing Brazil's national security plan, which is expected to include concrete goals and measures to curb police killings across the country. It is important that this plan be closely coordinated with the prosecutor's office, which should improve police oversight and require prosecutors to lead investigations into police violations rather than letting the police investigate themselves.
An important measure to ensure the independence of the judiciary and protect human rights is to have an attorney general who makes decisions based on the law and not on political interests. In Brazil, this independence is traditionally maintained by voting from a three-fold list of candidates chosen by prosecutors across the country. However, President Lula Bolsonaro followed Bolsonaro's negative example and chose an attorney general who was not on this list.
The Lula government's foreign policy was incoherent with regard to human rights. He called for greater protection of the right to education and urged humanitarian assistance for civilians in the Gaza Strip amid escalating hostilities in Israel and Palestine.
However, President Lula described the weakening of democratic institutions in Venezuela as a “constructed narrative,” despite the long list of authoritarian actions and human rights violations by the government of Nicolás Maduro.
“President Lula has promised to put Brazil back on the world stage,” Muñoz said. “It should use Brazil's new global profile, such as its presence in the UN Human Rights Council and BRICS countries, as well as the G20 presidency in 2024, to promote human rights and condemn human rights violations, regardless of geopolitical interests or the government's ideology . “responsible for the violations.”