Brazil must fully address violations of the dictatorship to guarantee human rights and democracy
Press releases
Special Procedures
07 April 2025
GENEVA -- To truly guarantee human rights and democracy, Brazil must fully address the violations of the dictatorship, a UN expert said today.
The Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, Bernard Duhaime, made the appeal in a statement at the conclusion of his nine-day official visit to Brazil.
The purpose of the visit was to assess measures in the areas of truth, justice, reparation, memorialisation and guarantees of non-recurrence adopted by authorities in Brazil to address serious human rights violations committed by the State during the dictatorship (1964-1985).
Throughout its history, Brazil has experienced large scale institutional violence targeted at different sectors of society. This violence has adopted the forms of colonialism, slavery, dictatorship and current instances of institutional violence directed towards the most marginalised sectors of society such as indigenous peoples, people of African descent and peasants.
"The harm produced by these practices has been experienced throughout the territory of the country and felt across successive generations," Duhaime said.
He warned that this continuum of violence was an indicator of the lack of comprehensive approaches to address serious human rights violations that encompass measures of truth-seeking, justice, reparation, memorialisation, and guarantees of non-recurrence.
"While Brazil has made significant progress to address these matters since 1985, the insufficient implementation of transitional justice policies to deal with the aftermath of the dictatorship has regrettably led to recurrent attacks on democracy, human rights and the rule of law", the Special Rapporteur said.
The expert said that the situation has maintained a social divide and blurred the foundations of international human rights law which provides that the State must respect and ensure to all persons under its control the free and full exercise of human rights, without any discrimination.
"As long as the rights to truth, justice, reparation and memory are not ensured for all victims of the dictatorship, this divide may persist and history may repeat itself," Duhaime warned.
To change course, Brazil must urgently implement and expand the transitional justice package proposed in the final report of the National Truth Commission.
The Special Rapporteur will submit his full report to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2025.
The expert: Bernard Duhaime, Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence.
Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.
Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/
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