Arias calls on High Commissioner Guterres
President Oscar Arias and UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres met in Geneva Wednesday and held talks on refugee protection and regional developments in Latin America.

Guterres thanked his visitor for Costa Rican efforts to promote the local integration of refugees and stressed the importance of the 1984 Cartagena Declaration, which broadened the refugee definition used in Latin America and offered an innovative approach to refugee protection and solutions.

"We are encouraged by the proposed revision of the new immigration legislation in Costa Rica," Guterres said. UNHCR participated in the drafting of the law by providing expert comments and technical advice.

Arias is in Geneva to visit some of the main international organizations, before travelling to Germany for the World Cup and Italy where he is expected to visit with the Pope.

Costa Rica has a long tradition of refugee protection and played an important role in bringing to an end the conflicts that raged in Central America during the 1980s, when the region was one of the main battlegrounds of the Cold War.

As a result of conflicts in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, some two million people became refugees or displaced within their own countries. Today, Costa Rica hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Latin America – there are officially more than 13,000 refugees, mostly from Colombia.

Costa Rica plays a key role within the Mexico Plan of Action, a regional initiative based on solidarity which puts forward a set of concrete solutions to the plight of refugees and the internally displaced in Latin America.

The Costa Rican government has also been supportive of UNHCR's programme to resettle emergency cases.