People's Tribunal condemns States and companies for ecogenocide. Nov 16, 2025

Photo: © BRUNO PERES/AGÊNCIA BRASIL

People's Tribunal condemns States and companies for ecogenocide

The sentence at COP30 denounces violations and demands urgent reparations.

RAFAEL CARDOSO - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Published on 11/15/2025 - 09:33

Belém

The Autonomous and Permanent People's Tribunal against Ecogenocide, a symbolic body established during COP30 by social movements, released a sentence condemning states and large companies for systematic violations against indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, traditional communities, and nature.

The decision, presented as a political act based on the ancestral authority of the peoples, affirms that the world is experiencing “a war between ways of life”: the colonial model that expropriates bodies and territories, and the ancestral way that recognizes the Earth as “alive, diverse, Mother, and worthy of respect”.

The ruling compiles complaints submitted by community prosecutors, victims, witnesses and experts from different countries in the temporary structure set up at the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office headquarters in Belém, this Thursday (13) and Friday (14).

Among the 21 cases judged are violations in the Amazon, occupied Palestine, Bangladesh and peasant territories in Latin America and Africa. The complaints include destruction of mangroves, dredging of rivers, expansion of agribusiness, mining and waterway projects, aerial spraying of pesticides, deforestation, land grabbing, slave labor and forced evictions.

According to the Court, the violations are not isolated episodes, but part of a “colonial, racist and patriarchal” political project that transforms nature into an asset to be exploited, favoring large corporations and financial sectors. Therefore, the document formally condemns the States of Brazil, Bangladesh, Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Guinea-Bissau and Israel.

The ruling also holds more than 800 companies responsible—including Cargill, Bunge, Amaggi, JBS, Enel, Norte Energia, Minerva, and Louis Dreyfus—and financial institutions such as BNDES, the World Bank, Banco do Brasil, Banco da Amazônia, Banco do Nordeste, and JPMorgan Chase.

The sentence demands a series of urgent reparations, including the recognition of territorial rights, the immediate demarcation of indigenous lands, the guarantee of the right to prior, free, informed, and good-faith consultation, the implementation of a broad and popular agrarian reform, and the revocation of Federal Decree 12.600/2025, which allows the privatization of waterways.

It also calls for a criminal investigation of the violations, the location of missing persons, the strengthening of protection for human rights defenders, and the annulment of any project that affects traditional territories without consultation.

The document states that reparations are necessary to confront “violence that threatens Mother Earth herself” and emphasizes that Indigenous peoples, Quilombola communities, and traditional communities are guardians of territories essential to the preservation of ecosystems.

The ruling is presented as a symbolic and political act that seeks to inspire future actions. “This ruling is more than a decision: it is song, it is drum, it is a lamp lit in the vigil of the peoples,” the text states.

The decision was signed by a council composed of Indigenous and Quilombola leaders, researchers, jurists, and defenders of the territories, including Cacique Ramon Tupinambá, Aiala Colares de Oliveira Couto, Iyalasé Yashodhan Abya Yala Muzunguè CoMPaz, Girolamo Treccani, Itahu Ka’apor, Andréia Macedo Barreto, Marcela Vecchione-Gonçalves, Luiz Felipe de Alencastro, Eliete Paraguassu, Helena de Souza Rocha, and Nô Recursos.

Published in Agência Brasil