Samarco Dam Break in Mariana/MG

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the Mariana dam rupture, its environmental and socioeconomic impacts, as well as the effectiveness of the protection provided by the legislation in force in this case. The right to the ecologically balanced environment is formally and materially fundamental, since, after the constitutionalization of the Environmental Law, we now seek to perform the most difficult task, consistently enforcing the norms that protect the environment, with an increasingly unconstitutional regulation. more rigid. The environment is considered a good of common use of the people and essential to the healthy quality of life, imposing to the Public Power and the community the duty to defend it and preserve it for present and future generations. With the breach of the Mariana dam, a major accident, there was a need to hold the people responsible. Regarding the environmental damage, when talking about the poles involved in this recension, we have the active pole that is the one who commits the illicit and the passive pole that are the ones affected by the damage, that is, the environment and the community. From the moment that Samarco failed to take the necessary precautions with the receipt of tailings by the dam, it can be concluded that it took the risk of the event. The fact that occurred in Mariana despite causing serious damage was not a disaster, but an environmental crime. The liability for environmental damage occurs in other spheres of law, whether civil, administrative or tax.