In tandem with the celebration of World Press Freedom Day, Costa Rica’s Ambassador to the United Nations signed the Freedom Online Declaration of the Joint Action for Free Expression on the Internet (PDF) yesterday. Don Eduardo Ulibarri met with Herman Schaper, his counterpart from The Netherlands, and handed him a document stating our nation’s position on the matter.

The Internet Freedom Coalition was created back in December of 2011 during the Freedom Online conference at The Hague. The purpose of the Freedom Coalition is to combine the efforts of the member nations to protect human rights and freedom of expression on the Internet, with the ultimate purpose of empowering civil societies.

The initial member nations at the conference were Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Ghana, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, The Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Costa Rica is now part of these nations, and as a group these countries believe that the same freedoms we enjoy and take for granted by virtue of our constitutions should be extended to the Internet.

The advent of the Internet seemed like a panacea to many users, and it is safe to say that millions of people in Costa Rica and around the world can communicate freely without fear of government surveillance or repression. We tend to take this for granted and then we forget about actions taken against bloggers in the Middle East, or the Great Chinese Firewall, or attempts by dictatorial regimes to find the magic switch that can turn off the Internet, or even legislative proposals like SOPA and PIPA.

The Internet can be used as tool of repression, which is what the Internet Freedom Coalition seeks to protect against. Online freedom comes at a price for the nations that adopt it. Governments that sign on to the Internet Freedom Coalition essentially promise to not use overtly intrusive monitoring or censorship of online communications, and to block the exports of Internet technology to repressive regimes. This means that Costa Rica cannot unreasonably snoop on or censor Ticos who use the Internet, and it also means that technology firms here may be enjoined to refrain from doing business with certain authoritarian regimes.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs