Visit to Brazil, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes 13. Brazil has made significant improvement in progressively reinforcing the role of the Federal Public Defender’s Office for Citizens’ Rights, and establishing national and statelevel committees dealing with various human rights issues.12 14. However, deep concerns remain for how evidence of risk and harm often fails to translate into necessary protections, benefiting few in Brazil. Historical progress is rapidly being undermined by a dangerous combination of additional hazards and risks and erosion of laws and institutions. Extractive industries 15. In January 2019, 270 people died when Vale’s Córrego do Feijão tailing dam in Brumadinho collapsed.13 Most of those killed were Vale workers having lunch in the cafeteria located directly below the tailings dam. The force of the toxic mud dismembered bodies, and shattered what was a bucolic community. Families and friends bear the intense trauma of recovering and identifying the bodies of their loved ones, rebuilding and repairing, while suffering from the lingering sense that justice has not been served. The Special Rapporteur was moved by the testimony of the community to the emotional pain they experienced and the suffering they continue to endure. 16. It is astounding that such a disaster would occur four years after a catastrophic tailings dam failure involving the very same company Vale, in the same state of Minas Gerais. In 2015, the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana collapsed killing at least 18 people and countless endangered species, fish and other wildlife. The disaster decimated livelihoods of over 3 million local community members including indigenous peoples who depend on the 800 km Rio Doce watershed ecosystem. The so-called Mariana disaster involved companies BHP Billiton and Vale through their joint venture Samarco. Instead of tightening controls on extractive industries after the Mariana disaster, Brazil’s Government inexplicably expedited licensing and failed to ensure adequate monitoring and oversight of operations. 17. While the Brumadinho disaster was technically caused by structural instability and liquefaction, 14 the real cause lies with a remarkable lack of Government oversight and criminally reckless conduct by Vale. Not only was an employee cafeteria still located below an enormous dam after the Mariana disaster, but also serious managerial and organizational flaws and corporate neglect played a tragic role.15 An investigation by the Brazilian Congress revealed evidence that Vale’s CEO was informed in an anonymous email weeks before the incident that the dams were at their limits. An independent investigation commissioned by Vale confirms that Vale influenced third party assessors, Potamos and the German firm TUV SUD, to falsely certify that the dam was safe.16 Similarly, with the Mariana disaster, engineers warned BHP, Vale and Samarco of the instability just six months before the collapse, yet they were dismissed and necessary precautions were not undertaken. 18. Today there are between 40 and 1000 tailings dams at risk of collapse in Brazil. Fortyfive were classified as most vulnerable in 2017, of which 25 belong to public entities, and nearly 1,800 dams are at either high or moderate risk of failure. 17 Vale has 124 registered iron 12 13 14 15 16 17 4 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) (2018) https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/prensa/comunicados/2018/238OPeng.pdf. Extraordinary Independent Consulting Committee for Investigation – CIAEA Investigation Report (20 February 2020) http://www.vale.com/PT/investors/documents/20.02.20_ciaea_report_i.pdf; Francisco Antonio de Castro Lacaz et al (July 26, 2017) https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0303-76572017000100302; Carlos Machado Freitas and Mariano Andrade da Silva (2019) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7138502/. CIAEA (2020) . Carlos Machado Freitas and Mariano Andrade da Silva (2019) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7138502/. CIAEA (2020) . ANA (2018) https://www.ana.gov.br/noticias/45-barragens-preocupam-orgaos-fiscalizadores-apontarelatorio-de-seguranca-de-barragens-elaborado-pela-ana.