{"id":5304,"date":"2015-11-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.conectas.org.inf.br\/wp\/noticias\/un-on-mariana-catastrophic\/"},"modified":"2021-04-23T18:45:50","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T18:45:50","slug":"un-on-mariana-catastrophic","status":"publish","type":"noticia","link":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/un-on-mariana-catastrophic\/","title":"UN on Mariana: \u201ccatastrophic\u201d","content":"

\"\"On the morning of Wednesday, November 25, the United Nations spoke out for the first time, through two of its special rapporteurs, on the \u201ccatastrophic collapse\u201d of the tailings dam owned by the mining companies Vale and BHP Billiton in the town of Mariana, Minas Gerais, in early November. The tragedy killed at least eight people and another eleven are missing.<\/p>\n

According to data compiled by the experts John Knox, special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, and Baskut Tuncak, special rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes, 50 million tons of iron ore waste containing high levels of heavy metals were released into the Doce river.<\/p>\n

In recent days, this wave of toxic waste \u2013 the equivalent of 20,000 Olympic swimming pools \u2013 reached the coastline of the state of Esp\u00edrito Santo. Along its way, it contaminated land and water and killed countless animals. The scale of the disaster is still uncertain.<\/p>\n

The rapporteurs did not hold back their criticism of the response by the federal government and the companies responsible for the dam. \u201cIt is not acceptable that it has taken three weeks for information about the toxic risks of the mining disaster to surface,\u201d they said. \u201cThe steps taken by the Brazilian government, Vale and BHP Billiton to prevent harm were clearly insufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Knox and Tuncak, the case serves as a \u201ctragic example of the failure of businesses to adequately conduct human rights due diligence to prevent human rights abuses\u201d. They also asked the Brazilian authorities to assess whether the country\u2019s mining laws are consistent with international human rights standards, \u201cincluding the right to information\u201d.<\/p>\n

Together with partner organizations, Conectas asked the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights \u2013 which will visit Brazil from December 7-16 \u2013 to give priority attention to the disaster in Mariana. Emphasizing that the bursting of the dam represents one of the worst social and environmental tragedies in Brazilian history, the organizations warned of the growing threat to the populations living around major mining projects on account of more lenient environmental licensing rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe human rights violations resulting from the bursting of the dam are incalculable, in particular the violations of the right to housing, health and access to water and information,\u201d said Juana Kweitel, program director at Conectas Human Rights.\u00a0\u201cThis catastrophe could have been prevented or minimized with strict licensing rules, proper oversight and a contingency plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here<\/u><\/a> to read the full statement from the UN.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div>","excerpt":"

Rapporteurs level harsh criticisms against companies and government; say steps taken were \u201cclearly insufficient\u201d<\/p>\n","author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[12513,108],"tema":[12279],"class_list":["post-5304","noticia","type-noticia","status-publish","hentry","category-news","tag-mariana-en","tag-united-nations","tema-socioenvironmental-rights"],"acf":{"subtitle-pt":"Rapporteurs level harsh criticisms against companies and government; say steps taken were \u201cclearly insufficient\u201d","author":false},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"featured_image":[],"terms":{"acoes_categorias":[],"acoes_tags":[],"category":[{"term_id":7,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":7,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1520,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/category\/news\/","relative_link":"category\/news\/","langs":{"en":"news","br":"noticia-conectas"}}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":12513,"name":"Mariana","slug":"mariana-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":12513,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":16,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/tag\/mariana-en\/","relative_link":"tag\/mariana-en\/","langs":{"en":"mariana-en","br":null}},{"term_id":108,"name":"United Nations","slug":"united-nations","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":108,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":245,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/tag\/united-nations\/","relative_link":"tag\/united-nations\/","langs":{"en":"united-nations","br":"onu"}}]},"author_name":"Leonardo Medeiros","author_nicename":"leonardo-medeiros","protected":false,"langs":{"en":"un-on-mariana-catastrophic","br":"onu-sobre-mariana-catastrofico"},"permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/un-on-mariana-catastrophic\/","relative_url":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/un-on-mariana-catastrophic\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/5304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5304"},{"taxonomy":"tema","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tema?post=5304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}