Hakim says that if one looks at the Arias plan in literal terms--putting aside the concerns about Nicaragua's civil war that inspired it--then it fares less well. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salavador all currently have internal strife or repressive regimes, he says.

And the plan has recently become something of a political liability for Arias, Hakim says. Costa Rica has recently been the recipient of a flood of Nicaraugan refuges. That deluge combined with the country's current economic difficulties have made some Costa Ricans wonder whether Arias spends too much time trying to solve other people's problems, Hakim says.

Whether or not the plan has been effective in a pragmatic sense, there is no question that the recognition it has received has given a tremendous symbolic boost to Costa Rica's spirits and its sense of self-confidence.

Hakim notes that Arias' plan for a settlement caught the world's imagination, while the United States' efforts in the same area had failed abysmally. The pact lead to an "immense pride by Central Americans generally" that the U.S. had been surpassed by the efforts of five small Central American nations, Hakim says.

The pact also put the country, and its unique democratic experience, under the spotlight of world attention.

"Costa Rica is known to the World. They don't confuse us with any other people," Robles says. "Costa Rica is for the first time the place of a Nobel Prize winner, and that he was president makes it better."