Objectives

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Dr. Morris Tidball-Binz, is planning to undertake an official visit to Honduras from 22 May to 2 June 2023, at the invitation of the Government of Honduras.

During this visit, the Special Rapporteur will focus on good practices as well as challenges related to the realization of the right to life in Honduras and the progress of the State’s obligations to ensure protection of the right to life. He will also identify challenges and formulate recommendations within his mandate to the State and relevant stakeholders.

Key questions and types of comments sought

In preparation for his visit, the Special Rapporteur welcomes input from civil society, human rights organisations, experts and academics and other interested stakeholders and individuals on issues related to the right to life in Honduras. The Special Rapporteur would be grateful for information relevant to his mandate, including on any or all of the following issues:

1. The current state of the protection of the right to life in Honduras, including information about the legal and institutional framework, quantitative (e.g., statistical) and qualitative (e.g., narrative) descriptions of the status quo, emblematic cases of unlawful killings, challenges and positive developments;
2. Information about investigative procedures for effective investigations of cases of suspected unlawful killings, including the state of the current medico-legal death investigations framework in Honduras and areas of potential reform, as well as the use of the Revised United Nations Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions (the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of a Potentially Unlawful Death (2016));
3. Information about progress in investigations of violations to the right to life in the context of the 2009 coup d'état, and the 2017 post electoral crisis;
4. Any topics that influence or intersect with the right to life and its protection in Honduras, including but not limited to the use of lethal use of force against vulnerable groups and minorities, – including human rights defenders, journalists, indigenous peoples and members of Afro-Honduran communities, – femicide and gender-based killings, and deaths in custody;
5. Information about the implementation of the state of emergency declared on 24 November 2022 and recently extended for six additional months;
6. Any information about progress made toward addressing recommendations made during the previous visits of UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions (E/CN.4/2003/3/Add.2 and A/HRC/35/23/Add.1).