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ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the plight of the ‘Guapinol Eight,’ a group of men who were arrested, detained, and convicted by a Honduran court after defending their right to access clean water. Our analysis is situated within a broader doctrinal conversation on the gaps in the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of human rights defenders. In particular, we highlight the (lack of) effectiveness of protection mechanisms, the complex connections between activism, repression of activism and risk taking, and the usage of legal and administrative mechanisms for repression of human rights defenders. We find that the Honduran criminal justice system largely fails to protect those who speak up against unfair criminal charges, detention, and convictions, while at the same time fails to condemn private companies or individuals who retaliate against the work of human rights defenders with lawsuits, violence, or murder. In the conclusion of this paper, recommendations are made as to steps the Honduran government can take to redress past wrongs and introduce standards that comply with domestic and international law before a chilling effect ameliorates the voice of human rights in Honduras in the years to come.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Karen Bennett, Danna Ingleton, Alice M. Nah, and James Savage, ‘Critical Perspectives on the Security and Protection of Human Rights Defenders’, The International Journal of Human Rights 19, no. 7 (2015): 883–95 at 885.
2 Alice M. Nah, Karen Bennett, Danna Ingleton, and James Savage, ‘A Research Agenda for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders’, Journal of Human Rights Practice 5, no. 3 (November 2013): 401–20 at 403.
3 Ibid.
4 Honduras, Water Defenders Target, Jamine Haniff, https://lab.org.uk/honduras-water-defenders-targeted/.
5 Honduras, One of the Most Dangerous Countries for Human Rights Defenders—Experts Warn, United Nations: Office of the High Comm’r (August 19, 2016), https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2016/08/honduras-one-most-dangerous-countries-human-rights-defenders-experts-warn.
6 Honduras: Events of 2021, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/honduras (accessed May 5, 2022).
7 The Situation of Human Rights Defenders – Honduras, https://ishr.ch/sites/default/files/documents/honduras.pdf. This law recognizes the status of human rights defenders and their rights, spells out the rights of human rights defenders and creates methods to prevent, investigate and sanction attacks and threats.
8 Ibid.; the National Council for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders has a ‘protection system’ led by the Secretariat of Justice, Human Rights, Governance and Decentralization, as well as members from human rights organizations, press associations, lawyers, judges and prosecutors. See, ‘Honduras, Events of 2015’, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/honduras.
9 ‘Honduras, Events of 2015’, Human Rights Watch.
10 Sarah Johnson, ‘“Two Murders in a Week”: Honduras Activists Risk Death to Defend Right’, The Guardian, March 22, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/22/two-murders-in-a-week-honduran-activists-risk-death-to-defend-rights.
11 Ibid.
12 The National Protection Mechanisms – Five years Later; https://pbi-honduras.org/news/2021-04/national-protection-mechanism-five-years-later.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Joint Statement on the U.S. – Honduras Strategic and Human Rights Dialogues, https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-on-the-u-s-honduras-strategic-and-human-rights-dialogues/.
16 Ibid.
17 Honduras: Events of 2022, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/honduras#:~:text=In%20June%202021%2C%20the%20Inter,human%20rights%20defenders%20in%20Honduras (accessed May 5, 2022).
18 Sarah Johnson, ‘“Two Murders in a Week”’.
19 Ibid.
20 Bennett et al., ‘Critical Perspectives on the Security’, 890.
21 The Situation of Human Rights Defenders – Honduras, https://ishr.ch/sites/default/files/documents/honduras.pdf.
22 Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, About Human Rights Defenders, United Nations: Office of the High Comm’r, https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-human-rights-defenders/about-human-rights-defenders (accessed April 30, 2022).
23 Ibid.
24 Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, United Nations: Office of the High Comm’r, https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-human-rights-defenders/declaration-humanrightsdefenders#:~:text=The%20declaration%3A,fundamental%20freedoms%20through%20peaceful%20means (accessed May 1, 2022).
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Honduras: Events of 2021, Human Rights Watch; Honduras: Events of 2022, Human Rights Watch.
28 Human Rights Protections in Honduras: Evaluating State Capacity to Protect and Promote Human Rights, WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas (December 2019), at 15, https://www.wola.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Derechos-Humanos-HN-ENG-4.6.pdf [hereinafter WOLA Report].
29 Ibid. As presented later, these articles in the Law on Protect coincide directly with language in the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, representing Honduras’ adoption of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders regardless of the document’s lack of binding law.
30 Situation of Human Rights in Honduras: Country Report, Inter-Am. Comm’n on Human Rights, at 75 (August 27, 2019), https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/Honduras2019-en.pdf.
31 Ibid., 76.
32 WOLA Report, at 9.
33 Ibid., at 11.
34 A combination sources were overlapped and used to present the history of the Garifuna population. Honduras: Afro-Hondurans, Minority Rights Group Int’l (2015), https://minorityrights.org/minorities/afro-hondurans/; IACHR and OHCHR Call on State to Refrain from Criminalizing Garifuna Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras, Org. of Am. States (2021), https://www.oas.org/en/IACHR/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2021/195.asp (emphasizing that ‘[i]n the specific case of women human rights defenders, criminalization may inhibit the defense work they carry out while also increasing and exacerbating existing social inequality’).
35 ‘Garifuna in Honduras’, https://minorityrights.org/minorities/garifuna-2/.
36 Ibid.
37 ‘Honduras: deteriorating human rights situation needs urgent measures Amnesty International’s written statement to the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council’, (March 3–28, 2014), https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/amr370032014en.pdf.
38 ‘Garifuna’, https://minorityrights.org/minorities/garifuna-2/.
39 ‘The Afro-Indigenous Garífuna People Face Violent Human Rights Abuses by the Honduran Government and Complicit Multilateral Institutions’, https://chuygarcia.house.gov/media/press-releases/representatives-garcia-bush-omar-schakowsky-bowman-introduce-resolution-to-affirm-rights-of-honduras-garifuna-people.
40 ‘IACHR Condemns Murders of Rights Defenders in Honduras’, https://www.oas.org/en/IACHR/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2023/022.asp.
41 Ibid. RESOLUCIÓN DE LA PRESIDENTA DE LA CORTE INTERAMERICANA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS, https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/medidas/garifuna_se_03.pdf.
42 As with the description of the oppression faced by the Garifuna population, a combination of sources was used to present the background of the murder of Berta Cáceres. Case History: Berta Cáceres, Front Line Defenders, https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-berta-c%C3%A1ceres (accessed April 20, 2022); Pratap Chatterjee, Top Executive Convicted for Murder of Berta Cáceres in Honduras, CorpWatch (2021), https://www.corpwatch.org/article/top-desa-executive-convicted-murder-berta-caceres-honduras.
43 ‘The System that Killed Berta Cáceres’, https://theintercept.com/2021/05/14/deconstructed-berta-caceres-desa/.
44 Ibid.
45 WOLA Report, at 9.
46 ‘IACHR Condemns Murders of Rights Defenders in Honduras’, https://www.oas.org/en/IACHR/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2023/022.asp.
47 Yvonne Donders, Column, ‘Defending the Human Rights Defenders’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 34, no. 4 (2016): 282, 282–4.
48 Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, About Human Rights Defenders. About human rights defenders | OHCHR, https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-human-rights-defenders/about-human-rights-defenders (accessed February 1, 2024).
49 Honduras: Events of 2021, Human Rights Watch; Safety of Journalists and Human Rights Defenders, Article 19, https://www.article19.org/issue/safety-of-journalists-and-human-rights-defenders/ (accessed Apr. 30, 2022).
50 End of Mission Statement by Michel Forst, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders on His Visit to Honduras, 29 April to 12 May, United Nations: Office of the High Comm’r (May 11, 2018), https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2018/05/end-mission-statement-michel-forst-united-nations-special-rapporteur-situation?LangID=E&NewsID=23063.
51 See Dashiell Allen, ‘Honduran Journalists Detained After Seeking Asylum in The United States’, Latin Republic, June 8, 2021, https://latinarepublic.com/2021/06/08/honduran-journalist-detained-after-seeking-asylum-in-the-united-states/.
52 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b); see Asylum Law and Procedure, Human Rights First, https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/asylum/asylum-law-and-procedure (accessed April 30, 2022).
53 Allen, ‘Honduran Journalists Detained After Seeking Asylum’.
54 Situation of Human Rights in Honduras: Country Report, Inter-Am. Comm’n on Human Rights, at 79.
55 Ibid.
56 Honduras: Human Rights Defenders at Serious Risk Despite State Efforts, United Nations: Office of the High Comm’r (May 11, 2018), https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2018/05/honduras-human-rights-defenders-serious-risk-despite-state-efforts.
57 The section of the paper summarizing the events surrounding the Guapinol Eight were pulled from numerous media sources. Honduras: Trial of Guapinol Defenders Begins as State Continues to Ignore Calls for Their Release, Civicus (December 1, 2021), https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/5484-honduras-trial-of-guapinol-defenders-begins-as-state-continues-to-ignore-calls-for-their-release; Nóirín Byrne, When Will Justice Be Done for the Guapinol 8? Two Years of Arbitrary Detention in Honduran Prison for Opposing Dangerous Mining Project, Trócaire (September 10, 2021), https://www.trocaire.org/news/when-will-justice-be-done/; The Guapinol Case: Why It Is Dangerous to Protect Water in Honduras, People in Need (October 15, 2020), https://www.peopleinneed.net/the-guapinol-case-why-it-is-dangerous-to-protect-water-in-honduras-7109gp; Honduras, Amnesty International Demand Justice for the Guapinol Eight, Amnesty Int’l (January 3, 2022), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/honduras-amnesty-international-demands-justice-guapinol-eight/; Jasmine Haniff, Honduras: Water Defenders Targeted, Latin America Bureau (June 9, 2021), https://lab.org.uk/honduras-water-defenders-targeted/; Honduras: After Two Years of Arbitrary Detention, Guapinol Defenders Remain Jailed for Protesting Against Inversiones Los Pinares, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (September 1, 2021), https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/honduras-after-two-years-of-arbitrary-detention-guapinol-defenders-are-still-detained-for-protesting-against-inversiones-los-pinares/; Killing of Defender Arnold Joaquín Morazán Erazo, Who Had Been Criminalised for His Defense of the River Guapinol, Front Line Defenders, https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/killing-defender-arnold-joaquin-morazan-erazo-who-had-been-criminalised-his-defense-river (accessed May 1, 2022).
58 See generally WOLA Report.
59 Honduras Enacts Penal Code Maintaining ‘Crimes Against Honor’, Committee to Protect Journalists (June 26, 2020), https://cpj.org/2020/06/honduras-enacts-penal-code-maintaining-crimes-against-honor/.
60 Honduras: Events of 2021, Human Rights Watch.
61 Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Commentary to the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom, United Nations: Office of the High Comm’r (July 2011), at 15, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Defenders/CommentarytoDeclarationondefendersJuly2011.pdf.
62 Freedom in the World 2022: Honduras, Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/country/honduras/freedom-world/2022 (accessed May 8, 2022).
63 Honduras: Events of 2020, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/honduras (accessed May 5, 2022).
64 Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights Defenders, About Human Rights Defenders. About human rights defenders | OHCHR, https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-human-rights-defenders/about-human-rights-defenders (accessed February 1, 2024).
65 Ibid.
66 About Water and Sanitation, United Nations: Office of the High Comm’r, https://www.ohchr.org/en/water-and-sanitation/about-water-andsanitation#:~:text=Access%20to%20safe%20drinking%20water,Economic%2C%20Social%20and%20Cultural%20Rights (accessed May 1, 2022).
67 Tanya Basok, Suzan Ilcan, and Jeff Noonan, ‘Citizenship, Human Rights, and Social Justice’, Citizenship Studies 10, no. 3 (2006): 267–73, 267.
68 Human Rights Defenders, Too Often Left Defenceless Themselves—UN Expert, United Nations News (March 4, 2020), https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1058641.
69 WOLA Report, at 24.
70 Ibid., at 27.
71 General Assembly of the United Nations, Election of the Human Rights Council, United Nations (October 14, 2021), https://www.un.org/en/ga/76/meetings/elections/hrc.shtml.
72 Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), The Escazú Agreement: A Glimpse of Hope for Honduran Environmental Defenders, https://www.uusc.org/the-escazu-agreement-a-glimpse-of-hope-for-honduran-environmental-defenders/.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Richard Middleton IV
Dr. Richard Middleton IV is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and an Adjunct Professor of Law at St. Louis University School of Law. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia and earned his JD from St. Louis University School of Law. Dr. Middleton was a member of Alpha Sigma Nu Honor Society, a Theodore McMillian Scholar and Dean's Scholar while at SLU School of Law. Dr. Middleton teaches courses on U.S. Immigration Law, Human Rights, and Race and Ethnic Politics. Dr. Middleton operates a solo practice with an emphasis in immigration law and defense against minor criminal infractions. He is licensed before the Bar of Missouri and the Federal District Court, Eastern District of Missouri. Dr. Middleton serves as a volunteer attorney for the MICA Project of St. Louis, Missouri, and also provides basic legal consultations for clients of the Latino Outreach Project of Crisis Nursery. Dr. Middleton volunteered for the Immigration Law Project of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri – during which time he assisted in drafting complaints to be filed in Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, drafted motions to be filed with Executive Office of Immigration Review, conducted legal research on complex immigration matters, prepared immigration petitions for clients, and drafted continuing legal education materials on immigration law. Dr. Middleton also received certification of training in family-based immigration law from the Midwest Legal Immigration Project. Dr. Middleton has an extensive publication record, having published three books; Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations, University Press of America, Unequal Protection of the Law, West Academic Press, and, Unmastering the Script: Education, Critical Race Theory, and the Struggle to Reconcile the Haitian Other in Dominican Identity, University of Alabama Press (with Sheridan Wigginton). He has numerous journal articles and book chapters, including, ‘The Operation of the Principle of Jus Soli and its Affect on Immigrant Inclusion into a National Identity: An Analysis of the United States and the Dominican Republic,’ in Rutgers Race & the Law Review, ‘A Comparative Analysis of How the Framing of the Jus Soli Doctrine Affects Immigrant Inclusion into a National Identity,’ in Temple Civil and Political Rights Review, and ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Policy Innovation or Non-Decisions?,’ in Seton Hall Legislative Journal.
Lauren Sullivan
Lauren Sullivan is an Associate at Greensfelder Law Firm. She assists in a broad range of business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, commercial contracts, due diligence investigations, and entity formation and dissolution. She combines her legal and financial knowledge to provide a high level of client service for businesses in a variety of industries. During law school, Lauren interned at the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. She also worked as a law clerk and a Saint Louis University School of Law faculty fellow, where she researched various issues including employee stock options and valuations.