Ciudad Morazán was conceived and designed with one purpose—to provide a better standard of living for blue-collar Hondurans. It consists of less than 60 acres just outside the industrial city of Choloma in the northern part of Honduras. Although the special jurisdiction provides many benefits to foreign residents, its primary purpose was always to offer poverty-stricken Honduran people a better alternative than fleeing to the United States as illegal immigrants.

​Honduras has been known for decades as an area with a weak rule of law, which accounts for its poverty and high crime rate. Choloma, in particular, is known as one of the most dangerous places in the world that is not an actual war zone.
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​A few Honduran visionaries saw the severe problems of Honduras as an opportunity to build something unique as a solution. The result was the Organic Law of Zones of Employment creating Zones of Employment and Economic Development, called the ZEDEs in its Spanish acronym. This law created the most advanced legal framework for special jurisdictions worldwide.

​Despite the infamous corruption of the political parties in Honduras, the law was passed with legal safeguards designed to protect the autonomy of the ZEDEs. Since providing legal stability was a primary goal of the plan to attract investment to the country, the safeguards included international treaties that would ensure the continuance of the ZEDEs even if a new government came into power and repealed the law that created them.

You can read my article about how Ciudad Morazán uses the ZEDE law to benefit Hondurans on the Free Cities Foundation blog here.