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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Honduras, who is also an investor in Próspera and the Vitalia project, a biotech initiative operating in ZEDE Próspera.To date, Mazzone has not filed a claim against Honduras over the repeal of the ZEDE legal framework, but he has not ruled out the possibility. As reported in The Corporate Assault on Honduras, in March 2024 Mazzone threatened the Honduran government, saying: “Let us work, or shut us down and face international consequences.”After the Supreme Court ruled the ZEDEs unconstitutional in September 2024, U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) issued a threatening message, declaring: “Be careful with expropriating the ZEDEs in Honduras. In January there will be a new Sheriff in town!” (She was referring, of course, to President Trump.)Similarly, Erick Brimen conducted a “strategy tour” in Washington D.C. in November 2024, claiming to have achieved a “bipartisan endorsement” of the ZEDE. In a video, Brimen stated: “A material change in U.S. policy will begin in January.”A Chilling Effect for Human Rights CampaignersKaren Spring, co-coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network, explained that a third of current ISDS claims against Honduras are linked to investments that local communities oppose. The best known case, she said, concerns the ZEDEs.“These companies feel entitled to use [investment protection agreements] to sue the State and basically try to recover the money they say they have lost due to the changes taking place in Honduras over the last two years,” she remarked.For Jen Moore, of the Institute for Policy Studies, in addition to the economic impact of claims brought to supranational arbitration forums such as ICSID, the aim is also to provoke a deterrent effect. For example, to open up negotiations under duress with the state or to put the brakes on decisions that the judiciary or even human rights bodies might make.Próspera Group’s nearly $11 billion claim, Moore said, as well as the threat from ZEDE Ciudad Morazán of a second possible claim, “seek to contain the current administration’s efforts to dismantle the regulatory framework that brought about the ZEDE.”Another fact highlighted in the “Corporate Assault” report is that all the constitutional and legislative regulations related
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