Four political parties – Workers Party (PT), Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), and Sustainability Network (Rede)– sued the Brazilian government for violations of its constitutional and international obligations in regards to environmental protection. The Plaintiffs specifically alleged that the Jair Bolsonaro administration had failed to allocate and disburse funds from the Climate Fund in 2019.
The Court ordered the Federal Administration not to neglect the Climate Fund again and determined that the resources from the Climate Fund cannot be withheld.
The ADFP 708 case was the first time that Brazil’s highest court addressed the issue of climate change. Brazil was regressing in its environmental protection responsibilities and duties under the Bolsonaro administration. For instance, through the 2019 and 2020 illegal burning and rapid deforestation were devastating the Brazilian Amazon. With Brazil one of the seven largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, this case is monumental for the country and for the protection of the environment more broadly.
Additionally, the Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal has various environmental protection cases on its docket. Thus, the new interpretation of the Paris Agreement and the reaffirmed constitutional safeguards on the right to environmental protection should mean more positive outcomes on climate-related cases, setting a positive precedent for the country’s environmental protection efforts.
Finally, as Maria Antonia Tigre suggests, the court’s acknowledgement of the Paris Agreement as a human rights treaty is unprecedented and respects the wishes of civil society organizations during the negotiations of the 2016 treaty. As she writes, “human rights organizations had been unhappy with the final text of the Paris Agreement, which relegated explicit mention of human rights to the preamble… so having a constitutional court qualifying the Paris Agreement as a human rights treaty may spur a global movement for the courts to follow suit in that recognition.”
