Paulo Lugon Arantes is a jurist, expert in the international protection of human rights and coordinator of the WBO (Washington Brazil Office) Europe Program. He has a bachelor's degree in Legal Sciences from the Federal University of Espírito Santo, UFES (1999); LL.M. in International and European Protection of Human Rights from the University of Utrecht (2003); and a doctorate with a focus on racial discrimination from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (2019). He is currently a professor, consultant, and reviewer with extensive work in the UN Human Rights Protection system. This article was written by Arantes especially for issue 103 of the WBO weekly newsletter, dated February 9, 2024. To subscribe to the newsletter, enter your email in the field below.

In 2024, Brazil begins an international agenda in human rights, development, and social issues full of opportunities and challenges. Having resisted an attempted military coup in 2023, despite facing a very conservative agenda at home, gives the country an image of solidity. The image of President Lula, walking hand in hand with members of the three Powers at the Planalto Palace, is historic and has a positive international impact, demonstrating unity, dialogue and strength.

Brazil will also have challenges ahead in the international arena, particularly in an increasingly polarized world, reminiscent of the Cold War. To understand these challenges, it is important to remember that, upon leaving its own dictatorial regime and redemocratizing, the country promptly adhered to human rights treaties and ensured success in the difficult negotiation of the 1993 Vienna Declaration, which remodeled the UN architecture in human rights. In this context, the country reaffirms the universality and interdependence of human rights in a gesture of non-automatic alignment. Thus, it ratified, almost at the same time, the two UN International Covenants: on economic, social and cultural rights; and on civil and political rights, two instruments adopted separately due to the obvious ideological divisions at the time. This touchstone guides Brazilian diplomacy and reflects on its reputation as an honest broker between the global North and South and in the various human rights debates.

In Geneva, Brazil regained a seat as a member of the Human Rights Council in 2024. Brazil was one of the great promoters of the creation of this new reinforced body in 2006, amid complaints regarding the selectivity of the old Commission. Still in the Council, Brazil has a difficult position to mitigate this selectivity, prioritizing dialogue and cooperation and avoiding mere political condemnation.

Later this year, Brazil assumed the presidency of the G-20, with a strong agenda to combat poverty and gender disparities, with several meetings scheduled to take place in Teresina, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília. In 2024 it encouraged the expansion of BRICS to include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Ethiopia, in a proposal for a new economic order, that is more inclusive, fair, and supportive.

Brazil's difficult task is to maintain a certain political coherence in a universe of such varied partners in a situation of enormous global polarization. For example, the interests of the BRICs members, as a bloc, are not fully transposed to the Human Rights Council. An investigative mechanism regarding Russia was implemented in Geneva. China and India have a principled position against country investigations, with Brazil not having such an automatic position, although it exercises great caution on this issue. For the March session, debates are scheduled in Geneva on the situation in Iran, Russia and Palestine (this is a fixed item on the Council's agenda). In the region, there will be the issue of Nicaragua and Venezuela, where Bolsonarist diplomacy adopted an automatic alignment. At the same time, Brazil supports, with the BRICS, processes important to global human rights debates, such as the new treaty on the right to development (led by the G77), the brand-new mechanism on peasants' rights and the resolution on international solidarity.

The scope and diversity of the resolutions led alone by Brazil or together with other countries demonstrates, from another perspective, its challenges. Brazil is part of the group that developed the resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity (OSIG) and the resolution on the right to privacy in the digital age, and it also leads the resolution on the right to health, trying to show the world that there are no irreconcilable issues. For example, the current UN rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, through her current work, demonstrates that, yes, it is possible (and necessary) to integrate OSIG, racism, gender and the right to health, bridging an artificial abyss that is residue of the Cold War, and demonstrated that rights should not be treated in silos.

Obviously, Brazil does not intend to systematically adhere the positions of all of its partners, from the global North and South. The inevitable inconsistencies and gaps are part of the diplomatic exercise itself, the result of the search for what is possible within each negotiation. The important thing is to analyze how the country introjects and validates these encounters and disagreements, according to its own society. Brazilian civil society has a well-defined concept of foreign policy as public policy.

Brazil also has the challenge of continuing to set an example in granting humanitarian visas, this time for the Palestinians, in response to the UN's calls for the international community to cooperate with the humanitarian situation in that country.

The 55th Session of the Human Rights Council, which begins on February 26th, will be attended by Minister Sílvio Almeida for the High-Level Segment, which will expose to the international community the actions of the first year of Lula's government and the vision of the country as a new member of the Council.

Brazil’s best positioning comes from its own internal experience. Brazil has historically led the UN resolution on the incompatibility between democracy and racism, resulting in a seminal study by the then rapporteur on racism, Doudou Diène. The topic is more than current and necessary, with the sharp rise of the extreme right at home, in the Americas and in Europe, with worrying polls about the future composition of the European Parliament and the possible future governments of its member countries. The resilience of January 8th has enormous potential to be transmuted into a difficult, and therefore realistic and positive, internal practice.

Perspectives for a Brazilian Human Rights Agenda in 2024 – The Challenges and Value of the Domestic Experience

The Serpent's Egg

The Lula Government and the Challenge of Inequality