The future and fate of the Central American Free Trade Agreement now not only depends on the nationwide referendum on September 23, but also on the decision, closer at hand, of the High Court Judges on whether the Trade Pact violates Costa Rica's constitution.

There has been weeks of speculation over whether or not the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) should take on the challenge of evaluating the pact before the public referendum takes place. On May 11th it was announced that Sala IV would proceed and will present their decision one month from when they begin. Many have tried and failed in the past to get the Pact reviewed by the supreme court, which makes this achievement of Ombudswoman Lisbeth Quesada even more impressive. The court will be examining whether or not the pact violates Human Rights, and will begin their review as soon as the Ombudswoman's office submits a copy of the 2000+ page agreement to the court. This is believed to have taken place on Wednesday morning of last week, meaning that a decision is likely to be made by June 15th.

It is not yet clear as to what consequences could arise from the court finding violations of human rights, but it could have some drastic effects on the final decision, with the possibility of the Pact being denied and the referendum not taking place at all.

Check back next week for further updates.

A Spanish company known as Liberty Segueros has designated $65,000 to plant 240,000 trees in Costa Rica, which has come as a very welcome surprise for much of the country. The trees are set to cover 1,800 hectares of forest land.

The thought behind planting so many trees is to reduce the amount of Carbon dioxide pollution which is floating around the atmosphere in Costa Rica. These 240,000 trees are expected to absorb 37,600 tons of Carbon Dioxide annually, making up for the pollution caused by the company in Spain this year, and on into the future. They also plan to reduce their energy consumption by 6% over the next 12 months, and intend to do all they can to follow Costa Rica's efforts to reduce pollution from business.