The International Competence Distribution Policy in Cases of Human Rights Violations by Companies: the case of the Samarco’s dam rupture, in Mariana-MG

Abstract

The present work proposes to carry out a study on the collapse of the Samarco’s dam case, in Mariana, analyzing the process of disaster judicialization, mainly the recent turnaround that took place before the English court that decided to review the denial of jurisdiction made in first instance and allowed the plaintiffs to appeal, continuing the major class action in history. The work seeks to investigate whether the international competence distribution in cases of human rights violations by companies is adequate for effective accountability of violating companies. To this end, it brings a theoretical perspective on this policy, based mainly on the criticism by professor Upendra Baxi. In the end, it is concluded that the international competence distribution, based only on the location of the damages, contributes to the impunity of violating companies and therefore, there must be a change in this perspective, so that the structural characteristics of these violations are taken into account. Once they go far beyond economic conflicts between private people because they have a markedly public character as they involve violations of human and environmental rights.