Sustainable development for whose benefit? Brazil's economic power and human rights violations in the Amazon and Mozambique

Abstract

The Brazilian government, led for two consecutive terms by the socialist Partido Trabalhadores (Worker's Party), is enabling an overwhelmingly state-funded public–private partnership (PPP) to perpetrate human rights abuses against indigenous peoples and riparian communities in its Amazon region. This article considers the human cost of facilitating an explicitly neoliberal form of economic development for the benefit of large corporations – the primary vehicle through which states grow and develop their economies. It will also show how the world's second-largest transnational mining company, Brazilian Vale SA, undermines human rights and positive state obligations in Mozambique, in exploiting the coal reserves there. The article frames this complex scenario within the business and human rights discourse, with an emphasis on the political economy of human rights violations. It first defines the role of the corporation within neoliberalism, then assesses whether international human rights law is able to prevent corporate human rights violations, or violations of the rights of specially protected indigenous citizens. This article concludes that Brazil's economic development policy and the actions of its leading transnational corporation – due to extensive allegations of human rights violations at home and abroad – are inimical to the principles of truly sustainable development.