By Wendy Anders

The Costa Rican Conservation Federation (FECON) and the Broad Front political party are preparing to file a case in the country’s constitutional court against the Costa Rican government, FECON announced in a statement on their website just before Christmas

The environmental non-profit group says the government is violating the right to citizen participation in environmental matters in a permit-granting process on a new proposal for growing genetically modified crops, or transgenics.

Costa Rica is obligated to “comply with minimum public informational requirements established in national regulations and legislation, in this case the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety,” said FECON.

Currently, the government provides public information on transgenic projects through the publication in national newspapers of an “environmental release certificate application,” or CLA, also known as Form No. Bio-05.

FECON faults the government for omitting in these newspaper publications any mention of the potential impacts or risks associated with the release of transgenic materials or organisms into the environment. They say the form does not provide the public with sufficient information.

Without such information, people cannot exercise their right to participation in environmental issues, alleges FECON, which is a violation of the country’s constitution.

In 2014, the Costa Rican high court upheld similar claims by environmentalists and scientists that the rights of the Costa Rican public had been violated by maintaining confidential all technical details regarding the authorization of transgenics (decision 2014-15017), continued FECON.

Since 1991, a little over 10 thousand hectares of transgenic crops have been permitted in Costa Rica, with cotton the main transgenic crop. In Costa Rica, transgenic cotton and soybeans are grown for harvesting seeds for export, said FECON.

A request for the cultivation of a new variety of transgenic cotton by Bayer S.A. is currently pending.