Honduran peasant organizations denounce before the UN a legislative decree that legalizes land dispossession in favor of agribusiness

Presse Release 
Tegucigalpa, July 27, 2026

The National Center of Rural Workers (CNTC, Honduras), a member organization of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC) – La Via Campesina, with the support of CETIM, has submitted an urgent complaint to several Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council to alert them to the grave situation facing thousands of peasant families in Honduras who are threatened with land dispossession and forced displacement.

The complaint focuses on Legislative Decree No. 107-2026, entitled Law for the Strengthening and Protection of the Agroindustrial Sector, Energy Projects, Tourism, Livestock, and Small Agricultural Producers of Honduras, adopted on June 10, and on National Police Circular DGPN-(S/D)-No. 009-2026, which orders the enforcement of approximately 1,000 eviction orders across different regions of the country.

The legislation, promoted by the right-wing majority closely aligned with the agribusiness sector, declares lands registered in favor of the agroindustrial, energy, and tourism sectors to be “immune from expropriation”, effectively preventing them from being subject to agrarian reform or declared of public interest.

These measures cannot be understood in isolation from Honduras’ long history of agrarian conflicts, marked by profoundly unequal land distribution and the advance of agribusiness and large-scale investments into peasant territories. For years, peasant movements have pointed out that these structural factors have fueled the criminal prosecution of community leaders, the forced eviction of communities, and a persistent pattern of violations of the fundamental rights of rural populations.

The complaint highlights that these measures violate rights recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), as well as ILO Convention No. 169 and the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which in 2023 condemned the Honduran State for violating the collective property rights of the Garífuna community of San Juan.

The National Center of Rural Workers (CNTC), the Council for the Integral Development of Rural Women (CODIMCA), the Lenca Indigenous Environmental Council of Honduras (CILAH), the Peasant and Indigenous Union of Honduras (UCIH), the National Front of Peasant, Indigenous and Afro-descendant Youth (FRENAJUC), and La Via Campesina Women’s Articulation demand the immediate repeal of Decree 107-2026, the suspension of Circular 009-2026, and an end to the evictions of peasant and Indigenous communities. They also demand an end to the persecution and criminalization of those defending their territories through the repeal of Decree 93-2021, which uses the criminal justice system to criminalize legitimate struggles for land. They further call for a prompt, independent, and thorough investigation into the massacre of peasants perpetrated in Rigores on May 21, as well as the effective implementation of the Honduran State’s human rights obligations and compliance with international rulings on territorial rights.

Enough of violence in the countryside! Peasants’ rights NOW!

Press contact:
Central Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo (CNTC, Honduras), cntc@yahoo.com
Raffaele Morgantini, Representante del CETIM ante la ONU, raffaele@cetim.ch, +41796606514
La Via Campesina, press@viacampesina.org