Biographical Note

New Permanent Representative of Costa Rica Presents Credentials

 

(Based on information provided by the Protocol and Liaison Service)

The new Permanent Representative of Costa Rica, Eduardo Ulibarri-Bilbao, presented his credentials today to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mr. Ulibarri-Bilbao was the Editor-in-Chief of La Nación, Costa Rica’s leading newspaper, from 1982 to 2003, after which he provided political analysis for that paper and other Spanish-language media in the Americas, as well as worked as a consultant in journalism, communications and politics and served as a board member on public and private organizations.

Beginning at La Nación in 1976, he served in many editorial positions while also working as a correspondent for the bi-weekly Visión, based in Mexico City, from 1977 to 1979, and for the Latin American Times, based in Bogota, Colombia, from 1979 to 1983.

In his academic career, Mr. Ulibarri-Bilbao has been a Professor at the Department of Communication in the Universidad de Costa Rica in San Jose, from 1976 to the present.  He also taught at the Central American Autonomous University in that city and at the Central American Journalism Program at Florida International University in Miami, United States.  He is the author of two books on journalism and two others on Central American affairs.

A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in Massachusetts, United States, from 1987 to 1988, he received his Master of Arts in journalism at the University of Missouri in 1976, having been awarded a Bachelor of Arts in mass communication sciences at the Universidad de Costa Rica in 1973.

Extensively engaged in issues of freedom of the press and governmental transparency, he was a founding member and President of the Instituto de Prensa y Libertad de Expresion from 2005 to 2010 and Chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press of the Inter-American Press Association from 1991 to 1995, as well as the main drafter of the Declaration of Chapultepec on freedom of expression in the Americas.

Born in Cuba in 1952, Mr. Ulibarri-Bilbao moved to Costa Rica in 1966 and became a Costa Rican citizen in 1970.  He is married and has two sons.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record