COSTA RICA

The Biodiversity Law in Costa Rica was the first of its kind in the worldto encapsulate all the principles of the International Biodiversity Treaty signed at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. The lawensures sustainable use oforganic resources, and fair distribution of the benefitsand costs derived from them. But now, the groundbreaking law, passed in April,could be declared null and void, following a complaintof unconstitutionality filed recently by the second vicepresident, Elizabeth Odio, who is soon to take over asCosta Rica's full-time environment minister.

"We are extremely concerned about this action,which declares two fundamental articles of the law unconstitutional," saidIsabel McDonald of Costa Rican environmentalumbrella group Federation for the Conservation of theEnvironment (FECON), one of the organisations thatdrafted the law. "This basically paralyses implementation of the law," it said.On the other hand, according to Odio, an expertjurist, the law creates two autonomous, publicly funded bodies to overseebiodiversity resources, which is not only inadmissible under the country's constitutional rules, but wouldset a dangerous precedent for government institutions, leading to theirdisintegration.

The law's creators are willing to change itsunconstitutional aspects, and wonder why Odio tookthe drastic step of initiating a legal procedure which canstall its implementation for one or two years, instead oftrying to negotiate a solution with them.

Odio, currently serving as a magistrate in the International Court ofjustice in the Hague, The Netherlands, said she iswilling to find a negotiated solution when she visitsCosta Rica next.