Óscar Arias
Oscar Arias Sánchez, President of Costa Rica in 1986–1990 and 2006–2010, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. Born in San José in 1940, he studied law at the University of Costa Rica, where he later taught political science, and earned a doctorate in political science at the University of Essex. A member of the National Liberation Party (PLN) from his youth, he was Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy from 1970 to 1978, a member of the Legislative Assembly from 1978 to 1982 and then Secretary General of the PLN.
Elected President in 1986 on the promise to fight for peace in a Central America torn by civil wars and Cold War confrontation, he proposed to the region’s presidents the peace plan that bears his name, signed in Guatemala in August 1987: the basis of a lasting peace and of the democratisation of the region. With the Nobel Prize he created the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, which promotes demilitarisation, the control of small arms and light weapons, gender equality and democratic governance.
In 2006 he became the first head of state awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to be re-elected. His second term focused on fighting poverty, expanding education and opening Costa Rica to international markets through free trade agreements. At the United Nations he promoted the Arms Trade Treaty, in force since 2014, as well as the Peace with Nature initiative and the Costa Rica Consensus, a mechanism for debt relief and financial support for developing countries that invest more in the environment, health, education and housing and less in weapons and soldiers. The author of many books, including the memoir Páginas de mi memoria (2024), he has received some 94 honorary doctorates, from universities such as Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth, and awards including the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award and the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award.
In the programme
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