A/HRC/33/42/Add.1 Corporate responsibility to respect indigenous peoples’ rights H. 77. The Special Rapporteur highlights the responsibility of businesses sourcing goods or materials, such as sugar, soy or animal produce, from Mato Grosso do Sul, or timber, palm oil or minerals from elsewhere in Brazil, to conduct adequate human rights due diligence to ensure respect for indigenous peoples’ rights in their supply chains. Similarly, companies involved in mining, hydroelectric dams, transmission lines or infrastructure projects have a responsibility to conduct due diligence with regard to indigenous rights and assess whether the State has complied with its duty to consult to seek the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples and has guaranteed that the projects will not impact on indigenous peoples’ rights. 78. Given the serious nature of violations of indigenous peoples’ rights — including allegations of ethnocide — and the failure of the Brazilian authorities to adequately address them or provide effective remedies, particular caution is necessary on the part of corporate actors, including banks, in order to live up to their responsibility under the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,16 to “know and show” that they are not complicit in or contributing to such rights violations. I. Access to justice 79. The lack of access to justice for indigenous peoples is a major issue. In Brazil, indigenous peoples face significant barriers in accessing justice owing to a lack of resources, cultural and linguistic barriers, institutional racism and ignorance of their cultures and rights on the part of the judiciary and the law enforcement forces. These barriers are compounded by actions and omissions of the State in relation to consultation and participation rights, the use of mechanisms that deny rights, such as the security suspension by the judiciary, and its failure to give adequate consideration to indigenous peoples’ land rights, for example, through the inappropriate application of the Constitution in the Raposa-Serra do Sol ruling. The presumption that land demarcation processes will be brought under the remit of the law is then used as justification to delay demarcation, so that the law is transformed into an obstacle to, rather than an enabler for, the realization of indigenous peoples’ rights. 80. The failure to ensure access to justice for indigenous peoples in a context where historical violence against them has gone unaddressed, alongside the increasing criminalization of indigenous peoples and violent attacks and killings with impunity, sends a message to those responsible that there will be no repercussion for their actions. For indigenous peoples, it signals that the State institutions, including the law enforcement and justice systems, lack both the will to ensure that their rights are protected and any genuine concern about their plight. J. Recent developments 81. The political situation in Brazil changed significantly following the Special Rapporteur’s visit, with the appointment of an interim Government and the implementation of a number of institutional changes. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that the political and economic crisis is serving to render indigenous peoples’ rights and issues invisible and less significant in the eyes of politicians and the public, to the detriment of addressing structural discrimination and imbalances in power in a manner beneficial to them. 16 See A/HRC/17/31, annex. 17