ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS: OTHERNESS AND RULES OF THE GAME

Abstract

This article analyzes, from the perspective of environmental law, the increasingly frequent environmental problems that arise as a result of non-compliance with the provisions of the Brazilian Federal Constitution and international environmental protection instruments. The aim of the research was to examine how Brazilian legislation has disciplined and guaranteed the protection of the environment. It also seeks to examine the individual and socio-environmental impacts caused by human intervention in the environment, based on relevant cases that have recently occurred in Brazil, such as the humanitarian crisis of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest and the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, from the perspective of Levinasian ethics, whose principle of otherness considers it fundamental to recognize man as part of the environment. The aim is also to briefly examine Douglas North's theory, for whom institutions are the rules of the game, taking the environment as an institution, in order to see which rule has prevailed. There will also be a brief reflection on the 2025 fraternity campaign, whose theme is “Fraternity and Integral Ecology: God saw that all was good [1:31]”. For this purpose, the deductive method was used, through bibliographical research and legislation, applying the hypothetical-deductive method approach. There was no intention of exhausting the subject, which is impossible. However, the results found here show that there is a need to put otherness into practice and to give greater enforcement to current environmental legislation.