Ali­cia Llanos

Gov­ern­ment has re­newed its ap­peal for the in­clu­sion of drug crimes in the Ro­man Statute of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC).For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan made the ap­peal at yes­ter­day's open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Cari­com re­gion­al sem­i­nar at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.Ram­bachan said due to the trans-na­tion­al char­ac­ter of the drug trade, al­leged per­pe­tra­tors of­ten re­mained en­sconced safe­ly in an­oth­er state, out­side of the reach of the na­tion­al ju­di­cial and law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties.He said with­out ex­tra­di­tion agree­ments, Gov­ern­ments of Caribbean states were un­able to pros­e­cute drug traf­fick­ers.

Drug traf­fick­ing, he added, was of­ten linked to the il­lic­it trade of arms, mon­ey laun­der­ing, mur­der and ex­tor­tion.He said with­out prop­er leg­is­la­tion in­ter­na­tion­al drug traf­fick­ers would con­tin­ue to threat­en the so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of all Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can states.He said the ICC would act as a "court of last re­sort" where na­tion­al courts were ei­ther un­able or un­will­ing to pros­e­cute, the ICC would be able to step in with­out com­pro­mis­ing the in­tegri­ty of the na­tion­al courts.Ad­dress­ing the me­dia af­ter the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Di­rec­tor of the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment's pe­ti­tion for drug crimes to be added to the Ro­man Statute un­der the ICC.Gas­pard said very of­ten the "main play­ers" in the drug trade were able to es­cape pros­e­cu­tion by mu­nic­i­pal or lo­cal courts.

The ICC, he said, would be able to bring re­dress to this prob­lem.In an in­ter­view with the me­dia, pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of State Par­ties Chris­t­ian We­naweser said the ICC un­der­stood the pe­ti­tion to in­clude drug crimes in­to the Ro­man Statute was ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to the Caribbean re­gion and oth­er parts of the world, where drug traf­fick­ing was preva­lent.We­naweser said the ICC and As­sem­bly of State Par­ties un­der­stood in­creas­ing trans-na­tion­al crime posed a very se­ri­ous threat to peace and se­cu­ri­ty.He said, how­ev­er, in­clud­ing drug crimes in­to the Ro­man Statute was a com­plex un­der­tak­ing which could take up to sev­en years.