O potencial papel da defensoria pública em desastres ambientais na operacionalização da responsabilidade civil: caso Mariana e Brumadinho

Abstract

This article will approach a brief history of Brazilian environmental disasters and the evolution of public policies since then. This will allow a comparison between agents that guarantee environmental integrity, in the legal entities of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Public Defender's Office. It will also discuss the definition and measurement of environmental civil responsibility through both litigation and consensual means. In this vein, the work of the Public Defender's Office will be analyzed, from providing assistance to the victims, to negotiating and implementing out-of-court settlements for these environmental disasters, with the aim of providing reparations to the victims. Finally, the resolutions of the cases involving the collapse of the mining dams in the cities of Mariana/MG in 2015 and Brumadinho/MG in 2019 will be compared, with the intent of highlighting the potential role of the Public Defender's Office in environmental disasters. The conclusion is that the extrajudicial route is the quickest and most effective means of redress, while the Public Defender's Office plays an essential function in giving a leading role to the direct victims of environmental disasters resulting from mining dam collapses, who are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged public, and therefore, who need safer post-disaster reconstruction.