Brazil continues selling arms to conflict zones, violating UN treaty

Brazil signed the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in 2013, aiming at preventing the sale of conventional weapons to conflict zones — but Congress only ratified it five years later. The agreement’s tortuous path toward final approval included multiple attempts by the Bolsonaro family to stall and nix its ratification. During his time as a backbencher in Congress, Jair Bolsonaro said Brazil would be a “sucker” to join the ATT.

While he was unsuccessful, Mr. Bolsonaro’s anti-ATT lobbying was a sign of what was to come for Brazil’s defense policy, once he was installed as president.

Beyond the rhetoric, the implications of the treaty can be counted in the hundreds of millions for Brazil’s arms industry. That’s because, in 2021 alone, Brazil has already exported USD 306.1 million in arms and ammunition — most of which to countries which have recorded multiple instances of human rights violations — according to data from the Foreign Trade Secretariat (Comex). Per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the country ranks 20th in the list of the world’s biggest arms exporters.

As part of the Bolsonaro family’s attempt to block the ratification of the ATT in Brazil, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro — the president’s third-eldest son — said that lawmakers needed to hear from manufacturers before making a vote. One of the arms producers he mentioned was Avibras, a bomb manufacturer based in Jacareí, a city roughly 82 kilometers from São Paulo.

Numbers from Comex show that ammunition exports from Jacareí to Saudi Arabia totaled more than USD 400 million between 2015 and 2018 alone. Five months before Eduardo Bolsonaro’s plea, Amnesty International accused a coalition of Gulf states led by the Saudis of using Brazilian-made cluster bombs in the Yemeni Civil War. 

According to the organization, evidence collected on the ground indicates that the munition came from Avibras, a claim the company disputes.

“Cluster munitions are inherently indiscriminate weapons that inflict unimaginable harm on civilian lives. The use of such weapons is prohibited by customary international humanitarian law under all circumstances. In light of mounting evidence, it is more urgent than ever for Brazil to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions and for Saudi Arabia and coalition members to stop all use of cluster munitions,” said Lynn Maalouf, then Director of Research at Amnesty International’s regional office in Beirut. 

Brazil never signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions and past and present governments have always abstained from voting on UN General Assembly resolutions related to the matter. In October, Congressman Luiz Phillipe de Orleans e Bragança, a loyal pro-Bolsonaro politician, called upon the lower house to strike down a bill banning cluster munitions in Brazil.

Cluster munitions contain...