Brazil, Supreme Court: No Limitations For Indigenous Claims

The Brazilian Supreme Court agrees with the Indians that the “statute of limitations” is unconstitutional.

This concerns the statute of limitations (Marco temporal, in Portuguese), which was referenced to by large agricultural companies when demarcating territories. According to this statement, indigenous people have no rights to lands if they did not occupy them at the time of the promulgation of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil on October 5, 1988. Moreover, it does not matter that they may have previously lived in these territories for centuries.

The Supreme Court found Marco temporal unconstitutional by 9 to 2 votes because it “contradicts constitutional guarantees of Indigenous rights to ancestral lands.”

For indigenous peoples, this is a landmark victory over “agribusiness” lobbyists and an argument in favor of combating climate change: indigenous conservation areas preserve forests. According to their leaders, there are “about 300 disputes pending,” and this measure aims at “protecting communities from land grabbers and incursions by illegal loggers and gold miners.”

However, the victory is not final. In the city of Brasilia, a law in favor of the agricultural lobby is in discussion: it has already been approved by the lower house and now is being passed to the Senate. However, with this decision in hand, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will have the opportunity to veto it.

Farmers, on the contrary, demand legal certainty, and this decision, in their opinion, goes in exactly the opposite direction. They require a time limit: before the arrival of Europeans, all of Brazil was inhabited by indigenous peoples, so without clear legislation, claims become potentially endless.