{"id":24714,"date":"2026-04-30T00:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T04:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/?p=24714"},"modified":"2026-04-30T12:37:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T16:37:40","slug":"honduras-the-criminalization-of-land-defenders-as-state-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/2026\/04\/30\/honduras-the-criminalization-of-land-defenders-as-state-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Honduras: the criminalization of land defenders as state Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leer en espa\u00f1ol.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Honduras, defending land and the environment has become a high-risk activity. The recent report \u201cOur determination outweighs our fear: Indigenous peoples and campesino communities fighting for land and territory,<\/a><\/em>\u201d prepared by an Independent Delegation of International Lawyers, offers a detailed analysis of the main causes of agrarian conflict in the country. This article discusses the report\u2019s findings, which point to a legal framework incompatible with Honduras\u2019s international human rights obligations, as well as patterns of violence, criminalization, and land dispossession affecting various Indigenous peoples and peasant communities.<\/p>\n

The report confirms what various international human rights organizations<\/a> have been warning about in recent years: in Honduras, the land conflict is marked by the convergence of interests among businesspeople, criminal organizations, and state officials operating through networks of corruption. This convergence facilitates the illegal appropriation of land and ensures impunity for serious human rights violations.<\/p>\n

A central element of this reality is the instrumentalization of criminal law by private interest groups. The systematic use of the crime of trespassing against land defenders highlights a perversion of punitive power, which ceases to safeguard the public interest and instead becomes a tool for social control and the dispossession of communities that oppose the seizure of their lands.<\/p>\n

This pattern has been exacerbated by legal reforms such as Decree 93-2021, which eliminates basic fair trial guarantees, enables summary evictions without a court order, and prioritizes criminal proceedings to address land ownership disputes, which are eminently civil and agrarian in nature.<\/p>\n

According to international human rights standards, the exercise of the State\u2019s punitive power must be governed by the principles of legality, necessity, and proportionality. The report details how Honduran authorities disregard these principles and highlights examples of flagrant violations of due process, the right to defense, and personal liberty in the actions of the Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office and the Judiciary regarding complaints of trespassing filed by individuals.<\/p>\n

The testimonies gathered during the visit by the delegation of international lawyers illustrate the consequences of such actions. Entire communities have been evicted from their lands through police operations in which homes have been destroyed, crops have been burned, and excessive violence has been used, including against women, children, and the elderly. In many cases, displaced families end up living in extremely precarious conditions, without access to basic services and under constant threats to make them abandon their land claims.<\/p>\n

The systematic and arbitrary use of criminal proceedings to manage agrarian conflicts stands in stark contrast to the Honduran justice system\u2019s inaction in the face of murders and attacks against community leaders and defenders of land and natural resources. The situation is particularly concerning in the Agu\u00e1n River Valley<\/a>, where criminal gangs involved in contract killings, drug trafficking, and other illegal activities act on behalf of companies disputing ownership of lands occupied or claimed by peasant cooperatives. Since 2010, more than two hundred murders linked to the agrarian conflict have been recorded in the Lower Agu\u00e1n, all of which have gone unpunished.<\/p>\n

Several leaders of the peasant movement who are under protection measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have been victims of attacks and murders in the Lower Agu\u00e1n. The murder of Juan L\u00f3pez in September 2024 is an example of the Honduran state\u2019s inability or unwillingness to protect environmental defenders. Juan L\u00f3pez was the beneficiary of precautionary measures from the IACHR<\/a> and one of the most prominent leaders of the movement to defend the Guapinol River.<\/p>\n

This incident follows a pattern similar to the murder of Lenca leader Berta C\u00e1ceres<\/a> in March 2016, as well as that of numerous defenders whose voices were silenced by business leaders with strong ties to high-ranking government officials and the justice system. Thus, the link between corruption in the granting of extractive project concessions, violence, and impunity makes Honduras the country with the highest number of murders of land and environmental defenders<\/a> relative to its population.<\/p>\n

The report also highlights an additional problem in Honduras: the lack of legal certainty regarding land tenure. The disorganization of the land registry, overlapping titles, the institutional weakness of the National Agrarian Institute and the Property Institute, and high levels of corruption within these bodies contribute to irregular land registration and agrarian conflicts.<\/p>\n

In light of this situation, the report proposes a series of recommendations, including the repeal of Decree 93-2021, the creation of effective agrarian justice mechanisms, compliance with the rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordering the protection of the territories of the Gar\u00edfuna people<\/a>, as well as strict regulation and oversight of agricultural and extractive activities in areas inhabited by Indigenous and peasant communities.<\/p>\n

Implementing these recommendations requires comprehensive public policies that address the structural causes of agrarian conflict in the country: unequal access to land, the historical exclusion of Indigenous peoples, and the lack of accountability among public and private actors involved in acts of corruption and the misappropriation of Indigenous territories and lands designated for agrarian reform.<\/p>\n

The international community and the private sector also have a crucial role to play. International financial institutions and transnational corporations must implement human rights due diligence standards in their operations in Honduras. This includes making investments and international cooperation conditional on verifiable progress in protecting the rights of communities affected by agricultural and extractive projects.<\/p>\n

Finally, the use of state apparatus to persecute those who defend the environment not only undermines basic pillars of the rule of law. It also generates reputational costs and imposes a series of obligations on the home countries of transnational corporations with investments in Honduras. In accordance with applicable international standards<\/a>, these countries must adopt the necessary measures to prevent companies domiciled or registered in their territory from violating human rights abroad as a result of the activities of their subsidiaries or other companies in their supply chain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Daniel Cerqueira<\/strong> is Climate Justice and Human Rights Program Director.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Peace Brigades International (PBI).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leer en espa\u00f1ol.   In Honduras, defending land and the environment has become a high-risk activity. The recent report \u201cOur determination outweighs our fear: Indigenous peoples and campesino communities fighting for land and territory,\u201d prepared by an Independent Delegation of International Lawyers, offers a detailed analysis of the main causes of agrarian conflict in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":24715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[513],"tags":[],"country":[876,881],"issue":[855,858,861,856],"program":[874],"resource":[],"class_list":["post-24714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","country-america-central","country-honduras","issue-business-and-human-rights","issue-climate-justice","issue-indigenous-peoples","issue-public-prosecution-offices","program-climate-justice-and-human-rights"],"acf":{"boton_1":"","url_boton_1\u00ba":"","boton_2":"","url_boton_2":"","boton_3":"","url_boton_3":"","boton_4":"","url_boton_4":"","boton_5":"","url_boton_5":"","boton_6":"","url_boton_6":"","boton_7":"","url_boton_7":"","boton_8":"","url_boton_8":"","boton_9":"","url_boton_9":"","boton_10":"","url_boton_10":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/CNTC-_-Base-Campesina-17-de-Junio_PBI.jpg?fit=1210%2C510&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24714"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24720,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714\/revisions\/24720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24714"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=24714"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=24714"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=24714"},{"taxonomy":"resource","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dplf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource?post=24714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}