Activists are determined to haul Costa Rica before the Inter-American Court on Human Rights to force the Central American country to legalise IVF. In 2000, its Supreme Court declared that IVF violated the right to life of surplus embryos. This effectively made IVF procedures impossible.

Subsequently, according to a report in the IPS news service, 10 Costa Rican couples appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), arguing that the ban violated their right to form a family.  In August the IACHR agreed and told the Costa Rican government to revise the law to conform to international conventions.

The government has fought back by introducing a bill on IVF which declares that every IVF embryo must be used, which effectively makes storing frozen embryos impossible. The bill also requires a special psychological test for couples wishing to undergo IVF.

The IACHR has declared that if there is "insufficient or no will" on the part of the government, it will refer the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.  The Court and the Commission are bodies set up by the Organization of American States to uphold basic rights and freedoms in the American hemisphere. Member states have to agree to submit to their adjudicaton. The Commmission is based in Washington DC and the Court in – ironically – Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose. ~ IPS News,  Dec 17