Costa Rica has the most powerful passport in Central America, granting access to 150 countries, according to the latest version of the Henley Passport Index.
Cabinet members said that a new policy would better focus Costa Rica’s resources toward “south-south” cooperation between developing nations, with a focus on environment, social development, transparency and other priorities laid out in the National Development Plan and foreign policy.
The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty goes into effect this Thursday, on Christmas Eve. The treaty, which will stop the unrestricted flow of legal weapon sales to active conflict zones around the world, has its roots in the civil wars that scarred Central America in the 1980s.
A week after Costa Rica celebrated the 66th anniversary of the abolition of its armed forces, President Luis Guillermo Solís criticized growing arms spending in Latin America during a speech at the Ibero-American Summit in Veracruz, Mexico, on Sunday. In his remarks Solís noted a “troubling” tendency in the region toward militarization.
Auschwitz survivor and former Inter-American Court of Human Rights president Thomas Buerguenthal received an honorary doctorate in recognition for his leadership in and promotion of human rights, including the founding of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Friday.
More than just a dry conference for stuffy intellectuals, the festival features diverse lecturers hail from all over the world, and their presentations are multimedia feasts for the eyes. Like a TEDx conference on steroids, FID is expected to draw about 2,000 attendees.
