Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday pleaded Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to veto recently approved legislation that would significantly weaken environmental licensing requirements across the country.

The group stressed that the bill undermines Brazil’s human rights and environmental obligations by weakening oversight of high-risk activities like fossil fuel production and cattle ranching in the Amazon, likely accelerating climate change. The organization also cautioned that, under the bill, disasters like the Brumadinho Dam collapse could occur again without proper environmental assessments, echoing concerns raised by over 350 civil society organizations.

Maria Laura Canineu, deputy environment and human rights director at HRW, noted that “allowing projects to go forward without environmental impact assessments is a recipe for disaster.” She underscored how the bill threatens the health and livelihoods of affected communities.

The General Environmental Licensing Law (Bill PL 2159/2021), also referred to as the “Devastation Bill,” was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on July 17, with 267 votes in favor and 115 against. It passed with little public debate or meaningful participation by civil society and received strong backing from the agribusiness and oil and gas sectors.

One of its key provisions, outlined in Article 8, is the creation of a “special environmental license,” which allows for the expedited approval of projects the government considers strategic, such as oil exploration in the Amazon Rainforest. Under this mechanism, companies would be able to obtain automatic approval through self-declaration, without any evaluation by competent authorities. The bill also exempts entire sectors, including agroforestry and livestock farming, from licensing requirements altogether. In these cases, companies would only need to submit a simple adherence form, without undergoing any form of technical scrutiny.

These provisions have raised serious concerns among Indigenous peoples, who have warned that the bill represents a serious setback for their protection and for environmental preservation. They claim that the bill violates Brazil’s Federal Constitution and international treaties ratified by the country, including International Labour Organization Convention No. 169.

United Nations experts have further argued that the legislation would contradict Brazil’s existing commitments on human rights, including the rights to life, health, and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, particularly for Indigenous and Quilombola communities who already face heightened risks due to climate change.

Climate change mitigation has been affirmed as a legal obligation for states under both treaty and customary international law, as outlined in recent advisory opinions by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) As COP30 approaches in Belém, Brazil, HRW called on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to reject the enactment of domestic legislation as a necessary step toward fulfilling these obligations and addressing the climate crisis.