The Brazilian Federal Supreme Court comes to the protection of indigenous people’s right to health in the face of Covid-19

In August 2020, the plenary of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court delivered a decision affirming the legal capacity of an indigenous movement, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), to bring a claim before the Supreme Court for the review of actions and omissions of the federal government and the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) when addressing the threat of Covid-19 to indigenous peoples – and ordering both the government and FUNAI to take precise actions for the protection of the indigenous peoples against such threat. The Decision is grounded on the Brazilian Federal Constitution and on international treaties which Brazil has ratified and introduced into its domestic legal system. At different moments, as we explain below, the Decision interprets this corpus of domestic law in light of international law. Notably, the Decision draws on the latter to affirm the need to ensure intercultural dialogue in enforcing the right to health. In this post, we begin with an account of the social-legal context of the Decision, before looking at how it addresses the right to access to justice and right to health before offering some final thoughts.