Agroindustrial Law

UN human-rights experts have urged Honduras to immediately stop executing over 1,000 eviction orders against peasant, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant communities issued under a 2026 agroindustrial law that overrides land-reform claims and ancestral land rights.

The farming community of El Tulito in Choluteca faces a second eviction as a cattle company backed by police attempted to seize remaining land on September 1, following a previous eviction on August 6 that destroyed valeriana crops, prompting human-rights lawyers to demand an investigation and legal safeguards.

Miriam Miranda, coordinator of the Garífuna rights organization Ofraneh, rejected a Supreme Court invitation to discuss territorial disputes, insisting the government must first dismiss criminal charges against five land defenders accused under a controversial agroindustrial law.

Five Garífuna community defenders accused of usurpation in a July eviction from ancestral San Juan lands remain without a judge after a national court nullified prior proceedings, while their lawyers argue the process violates constitutional protections and Inter-American Court rulings.

Garífuna leaders extended an indefinite encampment outside Honduras's Supreme Court after the court president refused to meet with a full delegation, demanding enforcement of four Inter-American Court rulings on ancestral land rights and repeal of the Agroindustrial Law.

A forced eviction in Choluteca under Honduras's 2026 Agroindustrial Law has triggered UN and legal scrutiny over whether the law violates constitutional due-process protections and international human-rights standards, with lawyers arguing it prioritizes corporate interests over peasant land rights.

The Garífuna community of San Juan, which won a 2023 Inter-American Court ruling on territorial rights, has occupied a coastal camp called Tuba Mena after a violent police eviction on July 5, drawing indigenous and peasant groups to oppose Honduras's Agroindustrial Law.

Police carried out the first enforcement of Honduras's new agroindustrial protection law to evict Garífuna residents from ancestral land in San Juan, Tela, resulting in five usurpation charges and accusations that the law violates an Inter-American Court ruling protecting the community's territory.

Police in northern Honduras are invoking recently passed legislation—including an expanded terrorism statute and an agro-industrial protection decree—to suppress civic protests and conduct evictions, drawing accusations of excessive force and rights violations from human-rights groups and community leaders.

Rural, indigenous, and human-rights organizations filed a constitutional challenge seeking to suspend Decree 107-2026, which they say enables land seizures and strips protections from campesino and indigenous communities to shield agribusiness, energy, tourism, and ranching projects.

Honduras's new Agro-Industrial Strengthening and Protection Law declares registered farmland, livestock, energy, and tourism properties legally protected against invasion or occupation, while exempting indigenous territories unless prior free-consent consultation is completed.

Two days after approving the Agroindustrial Protection Law, Congress modified it outside normal legislative procedure to extend tax and permitting benefits to energy and tourism sectors, a move critics say violates parliamentary rules and threatens indigenous and Garífuna lands.

The National Congress approved expanding a law that shields agroindustrial lands and investments to also cover energy and tourism projects, while adding a clause affirming the law's compatibility with indigenous peoples' right to free, prior consultation on communal lands.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that Honduras's newly approved agroindustrial law could harm indigenous and rural communities' land and territorial rights and deepen social conflict, urging Congress to align it with international standards.

Congress approved a law prioritizing agroindustrial activity as a national interest, expediting evictions and broadening criminal penalties for land occupations and blockades, drawing warnings from Cespad, a democracy-studies center, that it criminalizes peasant land-defense organizing.

Garifuna and indigenous leaders warn that Honduras's new Agroindustrial Law, designed to strengthen property rights and attract investment, risks displacing ancestral communities whose territorial claims and international protections remain unresolved.