Santos bans shipments of livestock (updated 25/04/2018)

In January 2018, controversies arose in the City of Santos when the shipment of some 26,000 head of cattle aboard the Panamanian livestock carrier NADA at Santos was suspended due to an injunction granted to animal welfare organisations that alleged maltreatment and mishandling of the animals and the long haul to the destination that amounts to cruelty. The court order was eventually lifted, but only to allow the vessel to leave Santos with the live cattle bound for Turkey.

Following the legal wrangling, on 18 April 2018, Supplementary Law No. 996/2018 was sanctioned by the mayor of the City of Santos to amend the Municipal Code of Posture (Law No. 3,531/1968) and prohibit the transit of vehicles carrying live animals within the municipality of Santos, except pets and animals used in therapeutic treatment, sports and police forces. The law is yet to be regulated.

Livestock carrier NADA berthed at the Port of Santos

The Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil (Confederação de Agricultura e Pecuária do Brasil – CNA) is seeking a remedy before federal courts to try to lift the prohibition on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional and could negatively impact the Brazilian foreign trade since it bans livestock exports from Latin America’s largest port.

Shipments of livestock in the nearby Port of São Sebastião, as well as in other major ports for livestock export ports in the North of Brazil, were unaffected by the legal dispute in Santos.

In response to the sinking of the Lebanese-flagged livestock carrier HAIDAR at Vila do Conde in Barcarena in 2015, which resulted in the death of most of the 5,000 cattle and abandonment of the shipwreck alongside the berth, the Brazilian Navy’s Directorate of Ports and Coasts (DPC) issued Ordinance No. 194/2016 DPC that conditions the berthing and operation of vessels carrying livestock to evidence of P&I cover (for “wreck removal” and “pollution by livestock cargo” risks) and successful passing inspection carried out by the Port State Control.

***UPDATE 25 April 2018 ***

Responding to a claim of non-compliance with a fundamental precept filed by the CNA, Justice Edson Fachin of the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal – STF) granted a preliminary injunction to suspend the effectiveness of part of the Supplementary Law No. 996/2018 that forbid the transport of live animals in the City of Santos on basis that the law transgressed the competence of the Federal Union. 

In grounding his decision, Justice Fachin explained that “Under the justification of creating a legislative mechanism to protect animal welfare, the municipal legislature imposed a disproportionate restriction on the right of agribusiness entrepreneurs to carry out their activity […] This disproportionality is evident when analyzing the federal normative framework that guides the matter, with a wide range of legal instruments established to ensure, on the one hand, the quality of products intended for consumption by the population and, on the other hand, the dignity and absence of suffering of animals, both in the transport and in their slaughter” (in free translation)

The final decision on the injunction granted to the CNA will be rendered by the plenary of the STF at a date yet to be scheduled.