Brazil must fulfil resolutions of international mechanisms for the protection of human rights

Exceptions represent a risky precedent of judicial insecurity, that could impact on cases that affect the rights of vulnerable populations.

The Supreme Federal Court is soon to decide on a resource put in place by ex-President Lula, regarding a UN Human Rights Committee resolution. Conectas has expressed its concern with regards to resolutions by international mechanisms for the protection of human rights.

It its democratisation process, Brazil has become a state party of eight of the nine principal international treaties on human rights in the United Nations, among them the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1992) and the first Optional Protocol (2009). It is a state party to the San José Pact, Costa Rica (1992), and has agreed to conform to the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights since 1998.

The upholding of international obligations set out in the international human rights treaties in which Brazil is a party state is expressed in Art. 5, paragraph 2, of the Federal Constitution and in Art. 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, of which Brazil has been a party state since 2009. The observation and implementation of measures adopted by organs linked to international regimes for the protection of human rights, that Brazil decided, autonomously and democratically, to adhere to, is an inherent consequence of participating in these regimes, whether these resolutions are cautionary or decisive, recommendations or sentences. Exceptions represent a risky precedent of judicial insecurity that could have an impact on a large number of cases, including those that affect the rights of more vulnerable populations.

For years, Conectas and other civil society organisations have been denouncing different kinds of violations of human rights in our country, pegged to commitments made by the Brazilian state at the level of the global and regional system of human rights. Indeed, these denouncements have led to international condemnations in cases related to conditions in the penitentiary, socio-educational and mental health systems, rural violence, forced disappearances, slave labour, extrajudicial executions and indigenous people, among many others. Conectas defends and has always defended, the fulfilment of these resolutions.