Critical legal theory, biopolitics and the crime-tragedy committed against the yanomami people by the brazilian state

Abstract

This work, carried out by researchers from the Observatory of Socio-Environmental Law and Human Rights in the Amazon, at the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Amazonas, was based on Michel Foucault's critical theory of law and biopolitics and analyzed the legal consequences of the Bolsonaro government's omission in relation to public policies that are essential to guaranteeing the existential minimum and ecological minimum for the Yanomami people, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Documentary and bibliographic procedures were used, with an emphasis on national and international standards, as well as documents and reports relating to events that occurred with the Yanomami. The results indicate non-compliance with international conventions on human rights (specifically those of native peoples) and Brazilian constitutional precepts. In the end, it was concluded that the "let die" techniques used against the Yanomami, ranging from state omission (when there is a duty to guarantee) to hate speech and exacerbated nationalism, led to and allowed actions for the extermination of an ethnic group that was in a situation of extreme vulnerability. In this context, death has become an ally of "progress”, and the politics of life has been transformed into systems of death, without the punishment of the powerful, which reflects the disproportionality between the rights and guarantees won and the position of the state.