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Brazil has been cutting down large swaths of the Amazon rainforest for development,agriculture and the use of natural resources from the rainforest. However, the Amazon is widely regarded as the lungs of the earth. Keeping this in mind, what international laws bar or place limits on how Brazil can use the Amazon keeping in mind the Brazilian government has jurisdiction over Brazilian land.

Schwarz Kugelblitz
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    "However, the Amazon is widely regarded as the lungs of the earth" Mistakenly. Oceanic plankton produce more oxygen than all rainforests combined. – Ryan_L Oct 12 '21 at 23:05
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    I see this in the close vote review queue. I urge everyone to leave it open. I do not see a push question, I see an honest attempt at learning about intergovernmental affairs and their effect on national politics. – Jan Oct 13 '21 at 11:15
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_of_the_Amazon_rainforest#/media/File:Amazon_over_time.png – eps Oct 13 '21 at 15:51
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    @Ryan_L: Marine life consumes most oceanic oxygen in real time, meaning it's not nearly as beneficial to land animals as plant respiration is, even if technically it's part of the biosphere. OTOH, an old-growth forest does nothing (on balance) to "remove" CO2; captured carbon is all released by fungi once the plant dies, mainly as CO/CO2. The rainforest problem isn't one of lost future removal, it's of cashing in banked carbon here and now. – dandavis Oct 14 '21 at 06:12
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    The Amazon may be irrelevant for oxygen production, it is certainly very important for biodiversity or climate. The "lungs of the Earth" phrasing is a distraction because of people who take this phrase literally. – gerrit Oct 14 '21 at 13:34
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    Comments deleted. Please don't use comments to debate the question matter. If you would like to answer, please post a real answer. If you would like to discuss, please use the chat function. Please try to limit these comments to suggesting improvements to the question. – JJJ Oct 14 '21 at 20:42
  • Brazilians are really nice people, but why should THEY not use their land, while we deforested ours? Either pay them to keep the Amazon, which would be difficult to sell to the taxpayer, and ruinously expensive although perhaps less so than war, or invade them to save the planet, keeping in mind they are allies with Russia and China. I kind of feel that America needs put it's house in order before further experiments in regime change. – chiggsy Oct 16 '21 at 00:16

4 Answers4

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what international laws bar or place limits on how Brazil can use the Amazon keeping in mind the Brazilian government has jurisdiction over Brazilian land.

There are no such international laws.

A good answer by @Fizz notes that there are non-binding aspirational commitments in several international understandings to which Brazil is a party (which I will not repeat).

But none of those international agreements or understandings "bar" or "place limits upon" how Brazil can use the Amazon. Functionally, they amount to nothing more than a non-binding promise to "do the right thing."

ohwilleke
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  • "Crimes against nature are crimes against humanity": https://www.dw.com/en/icc-climate-crimes-suit-filed-against-brazils-bolsonaro/a-59480922 – Martin Schröder Oct 13 '21 at 07:06
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    @MartinSchröder the group initiating the case in the article are stating "If the ICC start a preliminary investigation, we can speak of success". That seems to make this answer correct. – Jontia Oct 13 '21 at 08:18
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    And even if there were, enforcement effectively boils down to the same strategies other countries might use in the absence of treaties or laws - you can't make another country do something, so this usually just turns into an ultimatum; play nice, or we won't be friends with you. It's then up to Brazil to decide whether exploitation of the rainforest has more value than its international relationships and the flow of goods and services that they provide. If they still don't bend, then it's war - or you let them do what they want and hope that eventually the thumbscrews start to hurt a bit more. – J... Oct 13 '21 at 17:19
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    Lastly, a country can quite literally do whatever it wants, international laws be damned, unless another nation is willing to physically prevent them (ie. use of violence). – SnakeDoc Oct 13 '21 at 19:01
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    @MartinSchröder that's someone's opinion, I seriously doubt every single country has voted on it and adopted it as law. There might be TREATIES but those aren't law, though they may lead to laws being implemented in the signatory nations. – jwenting Oct 14 '21 at 12:25
  • @jwenting Treaties are often self-executing and enforceable as law, although not always. It varies from treaty to treaty. – ohwilleke Oct 14 '21 at 21:12
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    @SnakeDoc technically that's true for all human beings too. Everyone is free to do whatever they want... until someone stronger comes along and stops you :) – JonathanReez Oct 15 '21 at 13:43
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    But there is a movement to make ecocide an internetional crime @ohwilleke – Hennadii Madan Oct 15 '21 at 19:06
  • @HennadiiMadan The fact that someone wants to change the law doesn't mean that it is the law now. – ohwilleke Oct 15 '21 at 19:30
  • -1: Well then, how do you explain the existence of the journal The Review of European, Comparative & nternational Environmebtal Law? Is that just a chimera I see before me ...? – Mozibur Ullah Oct 19 '21 at 06:37
  • @MoziburUllah The existence of international environmental laws does not imply that there exist "international laws [that] bar or place limits on how Brazil can use the Amazon" as the question asks. For example, there are international environmental laws on deposits of waste by ships into the sea & on reporting of nuclear facility discharge incidents, but neither of these laws limit use of the Amazon that is allowed by Brazil. Comparative law compares environmental laws in, e.g. Brazil to environmental laws in, e.g. the U.S. or China. And, obviously, European law is not applicable to Brazil. – ohwilleke Oct 19 '21 at 16:22
  • Generally law is written objectively rather than specific to one man. Likewise with the law between nations, it does not single out a single nation. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a multilateral treaty established under the aegis of the UNEP (UN Environmental Programme) and was legally binding and obviously has huge implications for Brazil (but not written specifically for Brazil) and "it was one first South American country to fully adopt a National Biodiversity Strategy". – Mozibur Ullah Oct 21 '21 at 23:49
  • @MoziburUllah "the law between nations, it does not single out a single nation." This isn't really true. The lion's share of treaties are bilateral and are more akin to contracts or settlement agreements than they are to generally applicable laws. Multilateral treaties are relatively rare, are much less likely to be substantively enforceable in domestic courts or binding international forums with any meaningful bite, and usually allow signatories to opt out unilaterally in the future with relatively short notice (often months or a couple of years), or establish "private international law". – ohwilleke Oct 22 '21 at 00:09
  • @MoziburUllah "Private international law" basically means procedures for citizens of signatory nations to sue each other or enter into contracts with each other, usually unrelated to governmental policies of signatory states. For example, processes for establishing that people from one country are married if they marry in another country. – ohwilleke Oct 22 '21 at 00:10
  • A bilateral agreement because it is not subject to arbitration by a legally binding higher power is not like contract law. It tends to be governed more by customary international law. The point is, there is a multilateral agreement that does help govern the Amazon sustainably with the force of international law - this is the point you came down heavily on saying 'No' or 'none' - and which you are now disputing. – Mozibur Ullah Oct 22 '21 at 00:20
  • @MoziburUllah Bilateral treaties are usually enforceable in the domestic courts of the parties. – ohwilleke Oct 22 '21 at 00:36
  • @MoziburUllah The Convention on Biological Diversity is exceedingly mushy. Its text is at https://www.cbd.int/convention/text/ While it has a binding arbitration process, the underlying obligations are too mushy to be enforceable in the manner contemplated by the question. Usually, looking hypocritical or losing an opportunity to get a convention facilitated grant from a richer country would be the main downside of not carrying out its intent. The question contemplates as much more specific sort of obligation that does not exist. – ohwilleke Oct 22 '21 at 00:46
  • This is because bilateral treaties, like multilateral treaties are ratified by domestic law. But if a nation A agreed a treaty with nation B and then nation B simply decided to ignore the treaty, where does one go for arbitration? To the domestic courts of nation B, so long as those ratified domestic laws still stand. But what if nation B has ignored the treaty and voided all domestic law ratified upon it? What recourse is there then? This is why multilateral bodies like the EU have institutions such as the CJEU (the Court of Justice for the European Union) and recourse is found there ... – Mozibur Ullah Oct 22 '21 at 00:51
  • ... or in subsidiary bodies. – Mozibur Ullah Oct 22 '21 at 00:52
  • @MoziburUllah The CJEU is a poor example, because the European Union is really a weak federal state or confederacy, rather than a mere multilateral treaty. None of the international organizations to which Brazil is a party are comparable to the E.U. Generally, if the domestic courts of Country B won't enforce a treaty, there is little or no practical remedy that wouldn't be available in the absence of the treaty. – ohwilleke Oct 22 '21 at 00:56
  • Actually, Brazil had a very good Forest Law that was put together in the 70s which said that landowners in the Amazon had to reyain between 35-80% of the vegetation or forest cover. The reason why it wasn't enforceable was the lack of a reliable property register. It was too easy to game. This is why one of the provisions of REDD+ (established through another UN sponsored initiative, through really it was originally the initiative of the Rainforest Alliance) is the provision of such a registry with drill down specifics. This had already been ongoing, but this added force of international law – Mozibur Ullah Oct 22 '21 at 00:57
  • The EU was established by multilateral treaty, that is through international law. Likewise, the UN with its International Court of Justice (ICJ). – Mozibur Ullah Oct 22 '21 at 01:00
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International laws don't prevent anything unless you're interested in having a war to back them up.

hobbs
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    This is the the correct answer. To make it a good answer, you could expand it with some examples and a more detailed explanation of what you mean. – Andrei Oct 13 '21 at 18:11
  • and that's assuming there is international law, rather than a bunch of treaties that the countries involved may not even have ratified. E.g. France and Germany may make a treaty about the Amazon but if Brazil doesn't sign on to it (and they wouldn't most likely) it's just a worthless piece of paper. – jwenting Oct 14 '21 at 12:27
  • @jwenting if if Brazil signed it but ignored it later on, it's also just a worthless piece of paper if France and Germany aren't willing to invade Brazil – Haukinger Oct 14 '21 at 13:14
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    There are actions short of a war that parties can undertake to express that they are unhappy with actions by one of the partners, such as statements, ambassador recalls, boycotts/sanctions, ceasing beneficial cooperations, and other actions. – gerrit Oct 14 '21 at 13:32
  • True… As long as the definition of “war“ is not limited to military conflict, but might include non-military options such as trade wars, financial sanctions, etc. // but this is not what the OP is asking; they are asking if there is any basis in international law for any such actions. AFAIK not yet. // genocide of indigenous people might be stretched to cover this. – Krazy Glew Oct 14 '21 at 23:21
  • The Q says "prohibit". A toothless prohibition (that doesn't prevent anything) is still a legal if not a real prohibition. – the gods from engineering Oct 16 '21 at 21:39
  • And see also JonathanReez's comment above: regarding regular/national laws and their enforcement. – the gods from engineering Oct 16 '21 at 22:10
  • International laws aren't workable until they are subsumed some way into national law. This is usually the case to varying degrees ... – Mozibur Ullah Oct 19 '21 at 06:39
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There is an 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty but its wording on the matter is so vague and aspirational that it could hardly constitute any kind of firm commitment to concrete objectives:

“achieve also the preservation of the environment, and the conservation and rational utilization of the natural resources of those territories.”

It is basically a "framework agreement" that mainly obliged parties to maker further efforts towards

“operational agreements and understandings, as well as the pertinent legal instruments”.

As far as I can tell, not much came from that. On the other hand, in the context of climate change agreements, there was the

The Bali Action Plan encouraged actions to mitigate climate change, including “policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries” (Decision 1/CP13, Para. 1, b, iii). COP-13 adopted a specifi c decision on the issue of “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries” (Decision 2/CP.13), inviting the parties to support ongoing efforts to reduce such emissions on a voluntary basis (Article 1) and, in particular, undertake “demonstration activities” (Article 3).

Again "voluntary basis". Wikipedia has a map according to which Brazil has not even signed up to any REDD plans, but some (2019) sources say otherwise.

The United Nations’ Green Climate Fund (GCF) has accepted the first proposal for REDD+ results-based payouts from Brazil, effectively paying the country for reducing its deforestation rates in 2014 and 2015, as compared to the 1996-2010 average. In return for around 19 million tons of emissions reductions, the GCF has agreed to pay Brazil $96 million, which the country says it will use to launch a program called Floresta+ aimed at ecosystem restoration, the provision of environmental services, and strengthening the country’s REDD+ strategy.

There's also the Rio Declaration, which was probably signed by Brazil (as there are 175 signatories). It has broadly phrased principles such as:

Principle 7
States shall cooperate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the Earth's ecosystem. In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.

Principle 8
To achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people, States should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and promote appropriate demographic policies.

Principle 11
States shall enact effective environmental legislation. Environmental standards, management objectives and priorities should reflect the environmental and developmental context to which they apply. Standards applied by some countries may be inappropriate and of unwarranted economic and social cost to other countries, in particular developing countries.

But these are probably interpretable enough that it's hard to take them as commitments to any concrete (i.e. numerical) objectives, although some UN sources interpret these as an obligation to do no environmental harm to other countries such as entailing a

responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

There are however contrary opinions, e.g. commenting on similar language (regarding forests) in the Paris agreement:

Article 5 of the Paris Agreement sets the tone as it says that “parties should take action to conserve and enhance […] forests”. However, the drafting of this article may be insufficient to create direct responsibility on states (typically using ‘should’ and not ‘shall’), and it is rather broad and undetermined. It would require further elaboration from the tribunal to become fully operational.

This is quite apart from issues of venue and enforcement, e.g. whether Brazil (or any country) would agree to settle the matter in an international court, rather than e.g. being pressured by sanctions, which are usually easier to justify if some kind of violation of international norms/law is raised. (Sometimes the spectre of sanctions has been raised in re Brazil, e.g. by Biden as the "stick" counterpart to the "carrot" of payments for preserving forests.)

the gods from engineering
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The environment as a global concern is relatively new unlike war or slavery. Thus existing legislation is thin on the ground. However, there are a number of proposals.

Ecocide has been proposed by a panel of 12 legal experts around the world as an international crime akin to genocude and crimes against humanity. The definition was unveiled in June this year. It defines this international crime as:

unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.

The idea of such a law is not new. It was bought up originally by the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. The term ecocide had already been used two years earlier by the bioethicist Arthur Galston in the Conferance on War and National Responsibility held in Washington. Ecocide was also considered and then dropped during the establishment of the ICC in 1998.

Also research by Essex & Sydney University published in The Review of European, Comparative International Environmental Law states that although legal frameworks have been established to safeguard the environment, in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Reducing Emmissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), both under the auspices of the UN, they have not proved very effective.

In this opinion, they are agreed with by Luis Roberto Barroso, Justice at the Supreme Court of Brazil in an article published in Harvard's International Law Journal and titled, In Defense of the Amazon: The Role of the Law and Courts where he identifies key weaknesses in the legislative framework of Brazil. After all, international law, to be effective, has to be implemented at the national level and if the national legal framework is weak then this weakens the international law with weakened outcomes. One key proposal he suggests is a constitutional amendement to

prohibit the regularisation of public land invasions that favour land grabbers.

This should help strengthen the legal framework around CBD and REDD+ (this is an enhancement of REDD) and make it more effective in its aims.

Furthermore, the research referred to above states that human rights legislation may prove more effective in protecting the Amazon since:

campaigners would not need to submit information on more than one nation for it to be upheld. Courts would only need to judge that enviromental damage violated the rights of either certain individuals or tribal and indigenous peoples.

Mozibur Ullah
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