“Fight for Your Rights or Obey Your Master?” A MSI for Remedying Victims of a Dam Collapse

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of Brazil’s largest Multi Stakeholder Initiative (MSI) called Renova born out of the need to remedy and compensate the victims of the country’s largest environmental disaster caused by the rupturing of a mining corporation’s dam in the municipality of Mariana, Minas Gerais. Renova Foundation is fully funded by the two mining corporations responsible for the dam collapse. This qualitative case study with fieldwork allows for a critical analysis of Renova’s capacity for participation and deliberative democracy in providing access to justice via the concept of restorative justice. The case also permits for a comparison and contrasting of perspectives between the MSI and victims (and their legal aid consultants). I draw from the theory of internal colonialism to help explain from a local contextual and cultural perspective how and why in many cases Renova as well as the Brazilian justice system has managed to domesticate, silence and exhaust the victims into accepting meager amounts of compensation that is not rights-compliant. The implications for deliberative democracy and MSIs are also discussed.