The ambivalence of Inter-American Justice before the racism

The ambivalence of Inter-American Justice before the racism

Advances and obstacles in the recognition of racial issues in the Inter-American Human Rights System.

Between 1989 and 2022, more than 300 victims of forced labor were identified at the Fazenda Brasil Verde farm in Sapucaia, southern Pará state. The violations occurred with the knowledge of the state, which was condemned in 2016 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) for its omission. The victims were mostly young Black men. However, according to an analysis by lawyer and political scientist Felipe Adão, the Court disregarded the problem of racism in the country when analyzing the case, focusing only on the economic vulnerabilities of the workers. In his thesis, defended at the end of 2025 in the postgraduate program in Political Science at Unicamp, the researcher investigates how legal knowledge on the racial issue is constructed in the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IACHR), revealing limitations in the organization due to its reluctance to recognize racism in the cases investigated, such as that of Fazenda Brasil Verde. 

The research uses as its temporal marker the creation of the Rapporteurship on the Rights of People of African Descent within the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IACHR) — a system linked to the Organization of American States (OAS) — in 2005. “From then on, the system not only has a specialized department for analyzing racial issues, but its bodies also begin to receive petitions and judge cases related to racism,” states Adão. For the political scientist, this is a distinguishing feature of the Inter-American system, something that, in his analysis, would be very difficult to achieve in the European system. “It [the IACHR] has a vanguard discourse in the sense of presenting itself as a system aligned with contemporary demands. However, when looking at the body of decisions and documents, I see what we call ambivalence.” 

The ambivalence manifests itself, on the one hand, in the institutionalization of the fight against racism and, on the other, in the reluctance to adopt explicit positions regarding racial dimensions in violations. “Although the system elects the fight against racism as one of its objectives, in producing documents and decisions on this subject it is more silent than it is vocal. The Inter-American System of Human Rights (IACHR) is inconsistent in its actions because, in decisive cases, it uses concepts and ideas that divert attention from the racial debate to another type of social relationship, to other causes.”

However, the thesis points out that there has been an evolution over time. The 21 cases analyzed were divided into three generations: 1987 to 2000, 2001 to 2015, and 2016 to 2024. In the first generation, racism was not recognized as a central element of the violations in any of the cases, including that of Fazenda Brasil Verde, where justifications such as economic inequality in the country prevailed. In the second generation, there is an increase in recognition to 30% of the cases, a percentage that jumped to 64% in the last generation. 

“This third phase is marked by a positive shift. There is greater awareness of racial issues and a more explicit treatment of human rights violations, such as those caused by the multiple effects of structural racism involving young people, women, and men,” reflects Adão. 

One of the cases that demonstrates this progress is the violation of the rights of 171 quilombola communities in Alcântara, Maranhão, whose territory was affected by the construction of the Alcântara Launch Center (CLA), operated by the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) and inaugurated in 1983. The problem of structural racism was highlighted and taken into account in the decision to condemn the Brazilian state, issued in March 2025.

African American law

In discussing the reasons for and reluctance to address racism in the cases analyzed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), Felipe Adão's thesis brings to light a discussion about the neutralization of subjects in law. For the researcher, this is a problem within the legal system. "You become a party in a process and you lose your history, you lose your origin."

In an attempt to highlight the importance of race in legal processes, Adão proposes the construction of an “Afro-American law,” as formulated by Thula Pires, a professor in the Department of Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). The idea stems from the concept of Afro-American identity developed by the Brazilian intellectual Lélia Gonzalez. “Afro-American law is an attempt to counter a legal system that does not recognize Black people in their territorial and cultural specificity,” summarizes the political scientist.

The author explains the importance of this prerogative by recalling that judicial systems, and even the definition of human rights, are based on an ideal of human being that, since the foundation of the modern period, is the white man. “When judicial systems claim to be neutral and objective, they are often hiding the fact that they are judging or are constructed with some kind of neutral definition of what a person is. We see that neutrality ends up privileging those with more power, and silence regarding racism harms those who suffer from it,” observes Adão. To break this pattern, he analyzed, in his thesis, the importance of the protagonism of Black movements in the conception of cases. This action, along with the production of specialized evidence that attests to patterns of racism, contributes to the success of a “strategic anti-racist litigation,” he points out.

Theoretical-methodological innovation

For the analysis of the 21 cases in the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IACHR), the political scientist combined the methodology of political analysis of legal thought of Professor Andrei Koerner, the thesis advisor, with critical race theories, aiming to offer tools to understand how judicial systems treat race in their processes. According to the author, the steps of the analysis can be replicated for new research on racial issues and other legal and political themes.

Koerner highlights the theoretical, empirical, and analytical contributions of the work. "Felipe's thesis brings together a theoretical and methodological innovation by uniting law, politics, and critical theory in a critical analysis of human rights institutions and instruments. At the same time, it makes a significant contribution to critical race studies."

As a result, the professor says, the research highlights political and ideological conflicts within the IACHR. “It is said that there is an evolution in the Inter-American System of Human Rights towards expanding protection against racial discrimination and racism. There has been an evolution, but at the same time, this change is permeated by counter-changes, limitations, and obstacles that this more nuanced analysis allows us to identify.”