Real Bad News From Honduras: Chamber of Supreme Court Rules New Cities Unconstitutional
In a 4-1 ruling, the chamber now sends the case to the Supreme Court for full review. (Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with the Romer’s exit.) From the AP:
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The constitutional chamber of Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that privately run cities in the Central American country would be unconstitutional, threatening a project to build “model cities” with their own police, laws, government and tax systems.
The five-judge panel voted 4-to-1 in a ruling that goes against the Honduran government and the country’s elite.
Because the decision was not unanimous, the case now goes to the full 15-member Supreme Court, which is expected to take it up within 10 days.
The constitutional judges argued that “the foreign investment expected to be received by the state of Honduras implies transferring national territory, which is expressly prohibited in the constitution,” according to a copy of the ruling obtained by The Associated Press.
I never expected this charter cities project to move forward. Latin American people and governments are very sensitive about land and sovereignty issues. This is the legacy of colonialism by both the U.S. and the Europeans. Much of the developing world is still living the legacy of colonialism. Charter cities are too closely associated with colonialism for most developing countries’ people and governments.
I think the only way forward is to buck up and do the hard work of developing the technology and economics necessary for the creation of free floating cities in international waters (deep ocean). Only such city-states can be truly autonomous from current land governments. Any attempt by existing government to prevent the formation of such city-states in international waters (or any attempt on the part of the U.N. to tax them) can also be considered a form of colonialism.