Between 23-28 November 2024, the Progressive International returned to Honduras with a high-level international delegation of experts, academics, politicians and representatives of civil society organisations from Latin America and the United States.
The delegation’s mission was to support the government of President Xiomara Castro's decision to reject the World Bank’s private court system, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the Supreme Court’s ruling that the system of extreme special economic zones, known as ZEDEs, is unconstitutional and to listen to the communities affected by the ZEDEs.
Since 2023, through our Honduras Resiste campaign, the Progressive International has provided expert advice to the Government of Honduras and drawn global attention to the gross inequities of the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system, of which ICSID is a part. The most high profile has relates to US corporation Honduras Próspera Inc, which in December 2022 announced a $10.7 billion legal claim against the Honduran government through ICSID. $10.7 billion amounts to two-thirds of Honduras’s planned budget for 2023.
Próspera’s investors want to be compensated by the Honduran people for their democratic decision to overturn a 2013 law enabling the creation of special economic zones known as ZEDEs (Zones for Employment and Economic Development). Sold to foreign investors as a crypto-libertarian paradise, these zones were granted unprecedented legal and financial autonomy from national government policies.
Through several PI delegations visiting Honduras in 2023 and 2024, the organisation of thematic panels in the framework of the CELAC-Social Extraordinary Summit in 2024, and the creation of a Working Group — composed mainly of experts from Latin America and the United States, with extensive experience in the fight against ISDS — the Progressive International launched a global campaign in resistance to this new corporate colonialism installed in Honduras, and in support of President Xiomara Castro's actions to repeal the ZEDEs established in Honduras.
Our Honduras Resiste campaign pursues these objectives through the placement of communication pieces in international media and their dissemination on different platforms, the provision of specialised technical advice, and the carrying out of regular visits and a series of meetings, both face-to-face and virtual, between the members of the Working Group and senior officials of the Honduran government.
In March 2024, the Progressive International travelled to Roatan with a delegation of political leaders, experts, academics, jurists, activists and journalists to learn first-hand about the situation of the affected communities. This delegation reinforced the international visibility of President Castro's initiatives in her struggle to regain sovereignty and control over the entire Honduran territory.
Currently, there is a growing momentum worldwide to challenge and ultimately end the ISDS. Part of these efforts focus on the ‘Honduras vs. Prospera’ case, which is one of the most glaring examples of the abuse of the System by transnational corporations to circumvent the sovereign decisions of states that affect their profits. Recent events in Honduras — such as the government's denouncement of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention in February 2024, the Supreme Court's decision to declare the ZEDEs unconstitutional in September of this year, and Prospera's potential exit from Roatán — have marked an unprecedented turn for the country on its path towards emancipation from corporate neo-colonialism.
But the foreign companies running the ZEDEs continue to grab land, violate human rights and instrumentalise the Investor-State Dispute Settlement System to prioritise their private interests over those of the Honduran people. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, the country received fourteen claims in international arbitration, making it the second most persecuted country in Latin America in the same period (after Mexico). Four of these legal actions were filed with the ICSID during the month of August, when the country's exit from this body became effective. The company Próspera, for its part, maintains a lawsuit against the state for $10.7 billion. This constitutes a corporate assault on the efforts of the government and Hondurans to counteract the aftermath of the 2009 coup d'état.
During the visit, productive meetings were held with high-level authorities of the Honduran government, including the Private Secretary of President Xiomara Castro; the Attorney General; the Deputy Foreign Minister of Honduras; the Presidential Commissioner for ZEDEs; the Minister of Tourism; the Mayor and Governor of Roatán; amongst other important actors in the fight against the ISDS.
The purpose of this delegation was to deepen technical advice to support Honduran authorities in their defence against corporate neo-colonialism and the new arbitration claims underway, and to strategise with our coalition of allies in Washington D.C. to advance the recovery of Honduras' national sovereignty.
In solidarity,
Progressive International
