To License a Journalist?: A Landmark Decision in the Schmidt Case

How one man challenged a law to license journalists in Costa Rica. In 1980, Stephen B. Schmidt, a New Yorker practicing journalism without a license in Costa Rica, challenged the national professional association of journalists to enforce their licensing law, which inevitably restricts the content of the news media. It accepted that challenge, Schmidt was prosecuted, and in a case that went to the Costa Rican Supreme Court, was given a three-month suspended sentence. The case then came before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an arm of the OAS, which voted 5 to 1 to support the Costa Rican court's decision. This book contains the full text of the one dissenting brief presented before the commission, filed by the U.S. representative, R. Bruce McColm.