Organizations Denounce Devastation Bill in the Inter-American Human Rights System
WBO Press release
Nov 14 2025
Group says new Brazilian law contains a “direct threat to global climate stability”
Request the issuance of a “public recommendation” that the Brazilian State revise the law
The Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN), in partnership with the Washington Brazil Office (WBO), the Climate Observatory and Conectas Human Rights issued an alert this Friday, November 14 to the Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (Redesca) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) about what they classify as a “serious risk of institutional dismantling of the National Environmental System (Sisnama)” in Brazil.
According to the organizations, the General Environmental Licensing Law (Law No. 15.190/2025), known as the "Devastation Bill," "contradicts the principles of precaution, prevention, and non-regression in environmental law, pillars of international and inter-American environmental and human rights."
The organizations further state that the bill, even with the 63 presidential vetoes in its final wording, is still "a direct threat to global climate stability, environmental protection, life, and human security." They affirm that "the Brazilian State's omission in protecting ecosystems, by facilitating their destruction through legal means, may constitute a violation of obligations to the entire international community and, fundamentally, to present and future generations."
The warning further states that “by relaxing the instruments of environmental control, consultation, and evaluation, the Brazilian State weakens essential guarantees for the protection of the life, health, food, water, and territory of Indigenous peoples, quilombola and traditional communities, and the entire population affected by large infrastructure, mining, energy, and agribusiness projects.”
The group requests that Redesca issue a public recommendation urging the Brazilian State to take a series of measures to reinstate environmental licensing mechanisms and consultations with traditional peoples, as well as to strengthen public oversight bodies and prevent the approval of new regulatory instruments that have an effect similar to that of the Devastation Bill.
