Brazil’s Bolsonaro accused of crimes against humanity as Amazon felled, World News

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased sharply since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took office – and the losses represent a crime against humanity as climate change increases, an environmental non-profit indicted Tuesday.

Austria-based AllRise filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing the far-right leader of “easing and accelerating” losses in the Amazon with policies that encourage deforestation, land grabbing and illegal mining.

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“Jair Bolsonaro is heating up the mass destruction of the Amazon with open eyes and with full knowledge of the consequences,” said company founder Johannes Wesemann in a statement.

Bolsonaro’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The filing is only the latest in a string of charges against Bolsonaro at the ICC since he came to power in 2019, despite being the first to link the destruction of the Amazon to climate change and the expected health effects of warming, AllRise said .

Other complaints criticized Bolsonaro for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, where 600,000 people have died, and his policies affecting indigenous peoples.
It could take the ICC years to decide whether to investigate the new lawsuit, legal experts said.

Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, which backed the filing, said the lawsuit is unlikely to change the Bolsonaro government, but it could help fuel action by other key decision-makers, from Brazilian courts to companies investing in the country.

It could also weaken Bolsonaro’s international standing ahead of next month’s UN climate talks COP26, where Brazil is expected to try to show it can fight climate change while remaining an expanding agricultural powerhouse, he said.

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“It’s another stone of shame he built for Brazil,” Astrini said in a telephone interview.

precedent

Maud Sarlieve, a human rights and international criminal law attorney who helped create the AllRise case, said the lawsuit could test a key ICC statute to see if it could cover deaths related to environmental degradation.

The allegations submitted that the emissions caused by faster deforestation under Bolsonaro’s administration that are heating the planet could cause more than 180,000 additional heat-related deaths worldwide by the turn of the century.

If the ICC accepts the case, the move could help discourage other heads of state from adopting similar environmentally damaging policies, Sarlieve told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

If it rejects the complaint, “then we can use it to show that the law is not (relevant),” said.

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And if the law doesn’t work in “an extreme situation like the one in Brazil,” it needs to be changed, “she added.

Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Bolsonaro said his government was committed to protecting the environment.

But the deforestation rate is almost twice as high as it was from January to August 2018, according to government figures.