Arthur Napoleon Ray­mond Robin­son has died, aged 87.

Robin­son­was Prime Min­is­ter and Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and was one of the most ex­pe­ri­enced par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in the Caribbean re­gion.

He served as Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic from 1997 to 2003. Dur­ing that­tenure, he was called up­on to de­cide which po­lit­i­cal par­ty would form the gov­ern­ment af­ter the elec­tion re­sults pro­duced a dead­lock of 18 seats for the two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

He was a founder of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which he led to vic­to­ry in the elec­tions of 1986 when he be­came Prime Min­is­ter un­til De­cem­ber 1991.As Prime Min­is­ter, Robin­son was re­spon­si­ble for the eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial mea­sures that brought eco­nom­ic im­prove­ment to his coun­try af­ter a sev­en-year pe­ri­od of pro­gres­sive de­cline.

Dur­ing the 1990coup d'�tatat­tempt­by the­Ja­maat al Mus­limeen­the Prime Min­is­ter Robin­son and much of his Cab­i­net were held hostage for six days by gun­men un­der the lead­er­ship ofYasin Abu Bakr. When in­struct­ed to or­der the army to stop fir­ing on theRed House(the seat of Par­lia­ment where they were held hostage) Robin­son in­stead in­struct­ed them to "At­tack with full force", an ac­tion that earned him a se­vere beat­ing from his cap­tors. He was al­so shot in his leg.

He was al­sore­spon­si­ble for sev­er­al Caribbean ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing the Caribbean Re­gion­al Eco­nom­ic Con­fer­ence, the pro­posed Caribbean Court of Ap­peal and the West In­di­an Com­mis­sion chaired by Sir Shri­dath Ram­plal, for­mer Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Com­mon­wealth. He has rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go at many in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences and at the Unit­ed Na­tions where he has been ac­knowl­edged as a lead­ing pro­po­nent of an In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Ju­ris­dic­tion.

From 1976-1986 he led the strug­gle for de­cen­tral­iza­tion and de­vo­lu­tion of au­thor­i­ty to To­ba­go.He was the first Chair­man of the (re­stored) To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and­was a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the con­stituen­cy of To­ba­go East in the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

As Min­is­ter of Fi­nance from 1961-1967, Robin­son was re­spon­si­ble for the re­struc­tur­ing of the coun­try's fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and the re­form of fi­nan­cial and mon­e­tary pol­i­cy on the achieve­ment of in­de­pen­dence by Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Robin­son was the hold­er of two in­ter­na­tion­al awards: The Dis­tin­guished In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Law Award of 1977 and the Dis­tin­guished Hu­man De­vel­op­ment Award of 1983.

Robin­son at­tend­ed the Cas­tara Methodist School where his fa­ther, James A. Robin­son was head­mas­ter. From there he was the first Bowles Schol­ar to Bish­op's High School, To­ba­go, in 1939, and lat­er the first House Schol­ar­ship win­ner from Bish­op's High School in 1942. As a can­di­date for is­land schol­ar­ship from Bish­op's High School in 1944 and 1945, he ob­tained the High­er School Cer­tifi­cate in both years with Dis­tinc­tion in Latin.

Con­tin­u­ing his stud­ies in To­ba­go, Robin­son gained ad­mis­sion to the Bach­e­lor of Laws De­gree of Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty as an ex­ter­nal stu­dent in 1949. In 1951, he left for the Unit­ed King­dom where he gained ad­mis­sion to the In­ner Tem­ple and passed the bar fi­nal ex­am­i­na­tions in 1953. That same year he was ad­mit­ted to St. John's Col­lege, Ox­ford, where he ob­tained a Sec­ond Class Ho­n­ours De­gree in two years in Phi­los­o­phy, Pol­i­tics and Eco­nom­ics.

He was ad­mit­ted to prac­tice as a Bar­ris­ter-at-Law in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1955 and was in the Cham­bers of Sir Court­ney Han­nays from 1957 to 1961. He was elect­ed to the Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment in 1958 and to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Par­lia­ment as rep­re­sen­ta­tive for To­ba­go in 1961.

Robin­son wasa rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Trinidad and To­ba­go on the Coun­cil of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and a di­rec­tor of Trinidad and To­ba­go's In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion. He served as the first Min­is­ter of Fi­nance of this coun­try af­ter In­de­pen­dence and lat­er as Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs. He was a con­sul­tant to the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al on crime and the abuse of pow­er.

Robin­son was a di­rec­tor of the Foun­da­tion for the Es­tab­lish­ment of an In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court for over 15 years.

Robin­son was a Mas­ter of Arts of St. John's Col­lege, Ox­ford, in Phi­los­o­phy, Pol­i­tics and Eco­nom­ics, Bach­e­lor of Laws of Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty, Bar­ris­ter-at-Law of the In­ner Tem­ple, Lon­don and Se­nior Coun­sel. He hel­dan Hon­orary De­gree of Civ­il Laws from the Obafe­mi Awolowo Uni­ver­si­ty in Nige­ria. He wasan Hon­orary Fel­low of St. John's Col­lege, Ox­ford, and was a vis­it­ing schol­ar to the Har­vard Law School.

In 1987,Robin­son was award­ed the Pres­i­den­tial Medal of Ho­n­our from Cal­i­for­nia Luther­an Uni­ver­si­ty. On a state vis­it to Nige­ria in 1991 he was made Chief of Ile Ife by the Ooni of Ife.

Robin­son was al­so award­ed a Knight­hood of Ho­n­our and of Mer­it by an Ec­u­meni­cal Foun­da­tion of the Knights of St. Johns for "ex­cep­tion­al achieve­ments and un­selfish sup­port of hu­man­i­ty." He was a Free­man of the cities of Los An­ge­les and Thou­sand Oaks and held Venezuela's high­est award - the Si­mon Bo­li­var Award.

In No­vem­ber 1993, he was co-opt­ed as Vice-Chair of the In­ter­na­tion­al Coun­cil of the Unit­ed Na­tions af­fil­i­at­ed body "Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans for Glob­al Ac­tion" which has a mem­ber­ship of over 900 Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from 75 coun­tries around the world.

He was the au­thor of The New Fron­tier and the New Africa, and The Me­chan­ics of In­de­pen­dence,the lat­ter pub­lished by the Mass­a­chu­setts In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy Press, USA.

He co-au­thored the ar­ti­cle on Trinidad and To­ba­go in the En­cy­clo­pe­dia Bri­tan­ni­ca and has pub­lished nu­mer­ous ar­ti­cles and ad­dress­es.

Sources: Wikipedia,Trinidad and To­ba­go Par­lia­ment web­site