Banca de DEFESA: Luciana da Silva Sales Ferreira

Political-institutional instruments and mechanisms in business and state practices: reflections from the disaster of Samarco in the Rio Doce Valley

State practices, Bureaucratic records, Human rights, Negotiated resolution, Environmental conflicts

From the 2000s onwards, the expansion of large enterprises proved to be the possibility of strengthening the neoliberal State - which redesigns the borders and the character of citizenship through its policies adapted to the market. The Samarco disaster, which occurred in 2015, brings to light several aspects, from the structural and circumstance elements that may have led to the dam failure, to losses and damages - changes to the river, impacts on people and their ways of life - and conflicts around mitigation caused by the destruction and then its compensation. This doctoral thesis aims to investigate the performance of State institutions facing the biggest disaster resulting from the collapse of tailings dams in Brazil, through understanding the process of participation, demands, negotiation, mediation and deliberation of rights in the documentary spheres that constitute the repair process of Samarco disaster. I seek to contribute to the deepening knowledge of the way Brazilian justice operates, through Public Prosecutors, in defense of human rights. The repair, mitigation and compensation process, was administered by proposing Public Civil Actions and the adoption of Terms of Conduct Adjustment, both oriented for negotiated resolution of socio-environmental conflicts. Some of the negotiations culminated in agreements made in court and, in an unprecedented solution, which was the creation of a private foundation that became responsible for repairing the damage caused by the collapse of the Fundão dam. Furthermore, it was established the Independent Technical Advisory, aiming at the institutionalization of social participation in the repair process and the support of technicians that people who were affected could trust for the construction of programs and actions that address their demands. Thus, the objective is to describe how legal instruments and social technologies for conflict management were used in the Samarco disaster, in addition to reflecting on how the logics of neoliberalism, extractivism and environmental injustice are related.