International organizations warn of risks in project that changes environmental licensing
UN and OAS rapporteurs criticize a draft passed by the Senate that loosens environmental licensing and may breach the rights of traditional peoples and communities
Foto: Pablo PORCIUNCULA / AFP
Updated on May 26, 2025.
Draft bill 2159/2021 – which radically loosens environmental licensing rules in Brazil and was passed by the Senate – caused an intense reaction from international human rights organizations. The proposal, which being voted on at the Chamber of Deputies, has been denounced as a severe social-environmental setback, with the potential of compromising the right to a balanced environment secured by the Brazilian Federal Constitution.
Concern of the OAS
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), through its special rapporteur Javier Palummo Lantes, emphasized that the draft bill threatens “ecologic protection and human rights standards”. The warning reinforces the recommendations issued in April by the IACHR itself, after the climate tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul, asking Brazil to reject legislative initiatives that weakened environmental control – such as the so-called “self-licensing”, which does away with the need for prior technical analysis and inspection for the concession of environmental licenses.
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In response to the severity of the draft bill, Conectas Direitos Humanos sent a joint letter to six special rapporteurs at the UN, asking them to take a public stance against the dismantling of Brazilian environmental legislation. The organization claims that the proposal “represents a significant socio-environmental threat” and that it will “further increase existing social inequality”, with there being grounds to challenge it at the Federal Supeme Court due to its attack on constitutional precepts.
Reaction from the UN
The UN reacted on May 26th, with an official report signed by five rapporteurs and two task forces: Elisa Morgera (special rapporteur on human rights in the context of climate change), Astrid Puentes Riaño (special rapporteur on the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment), Pedro Arrojo-Agudo (special rapporteur on the human rights to clean water and sanitation), Lyra Jakulevičienė (chief rapporteur of the Working Group on Business and Human Rights) and Bina D’Costa (chief rapporteur of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent). In the document, the experts express “deep concern” with the impacts of the draft bill on the rights to life, health, water, sanitation, and a healthy environment, particularly for indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and traditional communities.
According to the rapporteurs, the project allows companies to obtain licenses based only on self-declarations, eliminates prior technical assessments, and expands exemptions to industries with high environmental impact, such as livestock farming and mining. It also compromises mechanisms of public participation and consultation to affected populations, in addition to dismissing the need for prior studies in non-ratified indigenous lands – which represent over 30% of claimed areas – and quilombo areas that are not yet officially declared (over 80%).
The changes are in violation of international obligations Brazil has undertaken to observe, such as ILO Convention no. 169 and the San Salvador Protocol. The rapporteurs also denounced the reduction in corporate responsibility and warned of the risk of undue influence of the private sector on the drafting of environmental laws. The stance of the UN and the OAS is offered in the time leading up to COP30, scheduled for November in Belém (PA), and reinforces international advocacy against a measure that is seen as the largest attack on Brazilian environmental legislation since the 1988 Constitution.
