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Costa Rica as a Peaceful
State: One Costa Rican Lawyer’s Odyssey v.
His Nation’s Establishment
by COHA Research Associate Ethan Katz and
COHA Research Associate Matthew Lackey
In its most positive light, Costa Rica has
had a long and impressive history as a
pacifist state. This history finds its roots
in the colonial period, starting with
Columbus’ fourth and final voyage in 1502.
The Spaniards called the present-day area
the “Rich Coast,” but Costa Rica possessed
little gold or other valuable minerals, and
lacked a large and centralized indigenous
population to be exploited.
As a result, the area grew largely isolated
from the other, more resource-rich colonies
(mainly extracting ore and employing forced
labor) and developed relatively autonomously
from the rest of the Spanish Captain
Generalship of Guatemala, as an egalitarian
and family-oriented agrarian society.
Perhaps for the better, Costa Rica generally
evaded the typical genocidal struggles
against “new world” colonialism.
Independence for Central America
News of Central America’s independence,
declared on September 15th, 1821, did not
reach Costa Rica until the end of the year.
After being annexed by Mexico, a short civil
war severed their ties and the country
joined the United Provinces of Central
America (which would become the Federal
Republic of Central America), remaining a
member for nearly 20 years.
The fact that Costa Rica’s first elected
president, Juan Mora Fernandez, was an
elementary school teacher by trade can be
looked back upon as an indication of the
country’s future commitments to programs of
social welfare that have long served as the
backbone of the country. In 1877, Costa Rica
became the third country in the world to
abolish the death penalty, after Venezuela
(1863) and San Marino (1865).
Since the end of the 19th century, save the
coup d’état and resulting military
dictatorship of General Federico Tinoco from
1917-19, Costa Rica had enjoyed a period of
relative political stability
uncharacteristic of its Central American
neighbors. However, in 1948, after the Costa
Rican legislature attempted to annul results
of a presidential election, civil war broke
out. During the 44-day conflict, the
bloodiest in its history, an estimated 2,000
Costa Ricans were killed. Led by Jose
Figueres Ferrer, and supported by Guatemala
and Cuba, the country emerged with a new
constitution that dissolved its national
army and extended suffrage rights to women.
From that period, Costa Rica has been a
beacon of peaceful and democratic politics
in an otherwise tumultuous region. In 1983,
this contrast was reinforced as the conflict
in Nicaragua between Sandinistas and
Contras, along with their U.S. backers took
on fierce dimensions, continually spilling
over into the northern border area of the
country. Distancing Costa Rica from both
sides, President Luis Alberto Monge
proclaimed the Declaration of Perpetual,
Active, and Unarmed Neutrality, pronouncing
the country “actively neutral forever,”
removed from any armed conflict, but the
dirty little secret was that government
authorities in fact aided the Contras. While
not formally established as law, this
“statute” has guided Costa Rican leaders
ever since.
These three historic landmarks (the
abolishment of the death penalty in 1877,
the 1949 Constitution, and the Declaration
of Neutrality in 1983), along with Costa
Rica’s consistent tradition of political
stability and free elections, demonstrate
the country’s strong commitment to human
rights and the principles of peace. For the
past half-century, Costa Rica appeared to be
the democratic state par excellence of Latin
America, illustrating that pacifism,
disarmament and nonalignment can lead to
egalitarian development and a high quality
of life. But, this status quo also exhibited
the hypocrisy of a nation where four
presidents in a row were implicated in
receiving payoffs from overseas
telecommunication companies.
Successful cases – Iraq War
It is necessary to understand and appreciate
this history when considering contemporary
events in Costa Rica. The country’s success
in cultivating a culture of peace with
respect for human rights has begun to be
legally recognized by the judiciary, opening
the necessary space for challenges to the
government to be initiated when it is
believed to be acting contrary to this
tradition. The unofficial guarantor of these
challenges, Costa Rican attorney Luis
Roberto Zamora Bolaños, has successfully
sued the government twice over its support
for the invasion of Iraq and over its plans
to extract and process nuclear materials.
Based upon the constitution and
international law, the corresponding
legislation was annulled.
In 2003, Zamora, at the time a third-year
law student at the Universidad de Costa
Rica, filed suit against President Abel
Pacheco and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Roberto Tovar for including Costa Rica in
the Iraq War’s Coalition of the Willing. The
suit was brought before the Costa Rican
Constitutional Court, a specialized division
of the Supreme Court established in 1989 and
mandated with the authority to oversee suits
of unconstitutionality and constitutional
rights. Similar suits were later filed by
the Ombudsman, José Manuel Echandi and the
Lawyer’s Bar.
In the first place, one might ask what
President Pacheco believed Costa Rica stood
to gain from supporting a war that was
extremely unpopular both at home as well as
abroad. In fact, Costa Rica provided no
material support, neither troops nor
economic assistance, for the conflict nor
the rebuilding of Iraq. Was this, more than
anything else, a misguided sign of Costa
Rican solidarity with the U.S.’s global
program of democracy promotion or a purely
symbolic act aimed at pandering to the
all-powerful U.S.A.? Nonetheless, according
to Echandi, “‘Moral support’ to military
operations in a third country is nothing but
a dissimulated support to a war. A statement
of such nature has not been foreseen in our
constitutional laws.”
President Pacheco attempted to frame Costa
Rica’s inclusion in the White House’s rather
pathetic Coalition of the Willing as support
for the general fight against terrorism that
extends far beyond the invasion of Iraq. He
defended his decision, stating, “I was just
supporting a friend in the fight against
terrorism. Costa Rica was against terrorism,
against dictatorships and that was it.
Afterward, it turned out that there weren’t
weapons (of mass destruction) and all that,
but that happens.” Unfortunately, this sort
of after-the-fact, “ends justify the means”
logic may not be particularly appropriate
for matters as serious as war.
The court unanimously judged that Costa
Rica’s inclusion in the Coalition of the
Willing ran “against the Constitution, Costa
Rica’s neutrality declaration, International
Law and the UN System.” Attorney General
Farid Beirute delivered the opinion before
the Constitutional Court that, based on
Costa Rica’s respect for international law,
and considering that the US-UK led invasion
was not authorized by the UN Security
Council, Costa Rica’s support for the use of
armed forces against Iraq was
unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Beirute also
recognized that the government did not
violate the constitution because its support
did not amount to a declaration of war.
After one year and eight months as a member
of the Coalition, Costa Rica removed itself
in September 2004, with the entire event
projecting a sense of buffoonery.
Arms Decree Case
Building upon his 2003 success, in 2006,
Zamora challenged President Óscar Arias and
Minister of Health Luisa Avila’s Arms Decree
(Executive Order 33240-S) of the same year.
The Arms Decree, which regulated the import
and manufacture of weapons, was challenged
on the basis of granting permits for the
“extraction of uranium and thorium,
elaboration of nuclear fuel, and manufacture
of nuclear reactors for any purpose.”
Once again, the Court unanimously sided with
Zamora and annulled three sections of the
Decree (1200 – extraction of thorium and
uranium, 2330 – elaboration of nuclear fuel,
and 2813 – fabrication of steam generators).
These sections were voided for violating the
right of Costa Ricans to a healthy
environment and ecological system, breaching
international law and the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, and threatening
Costa Rica’s right to peace and the UN
Declaration on the Right of Peoples to
Peace. According to the Court, “… [A] state
that seeks to promote peace both
domestically and internationally must take
special care on authorizing the manufacture
and/or import of weapons and chemical
substances in its territory by rejecting
categorically those that, because of their
nature, were conceived and designed to
encourage the negative value of war.”
Taking heed from reflections on peace by
Baruch Spinoza and Martin Luther King, the
verdict continued, stating, “A State that
takes Peace as a constitutional fundamental
value cannot conform itself with the limited
notion that Peace is just the absence of
war, it must go beyond that, preventing and
rejecting continuously all decision and act
which might derive and end in such a
circumstance.” To take peace seriously as an
ideal, according to the Court, requires a
conscience working not only to prevent
conflict but to actively promote justice.
While the idea of peace as a human right was
first brought up in the Iraq War case, the
Court’s ruling in this case formally
established Costa Rica as the first country
to legally recognize peace as a human right.
Ongoing Cases – CAFTA-DR Case
Zamora has parlayed his triumph in the
Iraq War and Arms Decree cases to challenge
the legality of the Dominican Republic –
Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR).
The legal right to peace, formally
established in the Arms Decree case, means
that Costa Rica can have no association with
any materials that can be used for the
purpose of war. However, CAFTA-DR contains a
long list of weapons and weapons-related
materials that qualify for the free trade
status of the agreement. If the suit were to
go to trial, there is a good chance that the
court would be forced to nullify it. As
international law, if only one section is
declared illegitimate, the entire agreement
is voided. Thus, Zamora’s challenge to CAFTA-DR
on the basis of its inclusion of arms could
threaten the entirety of the free trade
agreement.
It is important to note that Zamora’s
confrontation against the free trade
agreement focuses exclusively on the
country’s attempts to institutionalize peace
as a human right and the legality of the
law. This case does not voice opposition to
CAFTA-DR on any economic or environmental
grounds, and focuses solely on the “peace”
factor as the central issue. Zamora filed
the suit even before the free trade
agreement had been approved by the
government. However, it was dismissed by the
Court in Costa Rica because an Ombudsman’s
report was found to have ruled on the issue.
Zamora asserts that the Ombudsman’s report
agrees with his position and that his case
still deserves to be heard.
Zamora’s success in protecting peace as a
human right has garnered him a certain
degree of notoriety in the officials’
circles in San José, in particular from the
judiciary. Because he no longer is able to
work free of harassment and discrimination
in Costa Rica, Zamora has taken his case to
the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR), where he has filed a suit
alleging “denial of access to justice,
obstruction of proceedings, and judicial
bias, by virtue of [his] name.” If the IACHR
finds in his favor, there are two possible
actions that could occur: the Commission can
remand the case back to the Costa Rican
Supreme Court, thereby forcing the national
court to try the case, or it could overrule
the national judgment and annul the free
trade agreement (CAFTA-DR) itself.
Difficulties Faced by Zamora and
Implications
For all of his successes, Zamora
encounters tremendous difficulties in
continuing his work in Costa Rica. He has
had problems finding clients, as potential
cases avoid his legal counsel due to the
bias against him as a brash young man in the
legal bureaucracy. He can’t use his own
letterhead, can’t sign his own name and
can’t stamp documents submitted to the
courts—all because of his past victories
against the country’s bureaucracy. Zamora’s
cases are denied as soon as he identifies
himself in pre-trial legal proceedings. He
has been forced to resort to filing his
suits anonymously in order to avoid
discrimination from the government.
The fact that peaceful Costa Rica is
hampering and harassing its greatest
advocate for peace and human rights suggests
that in past years this tradition has come
under attack, and the Nobel Laureate
president, Óscar Arias has been no ardent
defender of it. Nevertheless, Costa Rica
generally has been a leader on issues of
human rights, so it comes as little surprise
that it continues to be at the forefront by
setting legal precedents concerning the
right to peace. Zamora sees the results of
these cases as larger than just applying to
Costa Rica and stresses that these tactics
can and should be applied to other
countries, emphasizing the international
perspective of his work. The next step will
be for other countries to consider emulating
these principles by setting their own
precedents to institutionalize national
human rights commitments as binding
international law.
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