The criminal policy of ecocide in Brazil:

criminalization proposals between subversion and reproduction of penal modernity/coloniality

Abstract

The theme of criminalization of ecocide has gained increasing prominence internationally, generating national and local impacts, as in Brazil. In the National Congress today two bills that seek to create criminal types to include ecocide in the environmental crimes law are being processed: pls nº 2.787/2019 and nº 2933/2023.  This work seeks to understand how the typification of ecocide has been proposed and debated in the Brazilian political-legislative scope, from a critical reading that understands ecocide as a result of a colonial war against nature. We also start from critical criminology, especially green criminology to think the criminal justice system, especially the political-criminal alternatives that may result from structural criticism of the criminal system.  The research has a theoretical and documentary nature, from the content analysis of legislative proposals for criminalization of ecocide and its justifications, amendments and reports, contextualized by the political movements that inaugurate and promote this debate. We conclude that the proposals for typification of ecocide in the political-legislative scope have the bias to feed the selectivity processes already existing in our society, especially in the immunization of those crossed by the privileges of whiteness, in addition to the continuous removal from repair, accountability, which allow to meet the demands of those affected by serious social damage.