As T&T cel­e­brat­ed World Steel­pan Day last Fri­day, Cin­tra Lucky, wife of re­tired Court of Ap­peal Judge of T&T Antony Lucky, now a Judge of the In­ter­na­tion­al Tri­bunal for the Law of Sea, re­calls her ini­tia­tive of hav­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment in­tro­duced to vis­i­tors of the tri­bunal.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Tri­bunal for the Law of the Sea (IT­LOS) is an in­de­pen­dent ju­di­cial body es­tab­lished by the 1982 Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Law of the Sea, (“the Con­ven­tion”).

It has ju­ris­dic­tion over any dis­pute con­cern­ing the in­ter­pre­ta­tion and ap­pli­ca­tion of the Con­ven­tion.

The IT­LOS is com­posed of 21 judges elect­ed by the States par­ties to the Con­ven­tion and is one of the ju­di­cial arms of the Unit­ed Na­tions as well as the on­ly Unit­ed Na­tions In­sti­tu­tion on Ger­man soil.

It’s sit­u­at­ed in the Hanseat­ic city of Ham­burg, in north­ern Ger­many.

T&T is a states par­ty to the Con­ven­tion and from Sep­tem­ber 2002 un­til 2020 had two du­ly elect­ed judges on the tri­bunal—the late Lennox Bal­lah and Jus­tice An­tho­ny Lucky.

When Jus­tice Lucky’s wife, Cin­tra, vis­it­ed the tri­bunal in Ham­burg, Ger­many (Diplo­mat­ic No­ti­zen Aus Nord­deuth­land, on Au­gust 1, 2004—she said, “If Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean is part of the In­ter­na­tion­al Tri­bunal of the Law of the Sea, we should bring a gift to it.”

She al­so thought that the steel­pan would be seen and its rich his­to­ry and tourist at­trac­tions would be mar­ket­ed through the glob­al vil­lage which hosts an an­nu­al “Open Day” when over 4,000 peo­ple both na­tion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly vis­it the In­ter­na­tion­al Tri­bunal.

So im­me­di­ate­ly an idea was born and nur­tured.

Up­on their re­turn to Trinidad, Judge Lucky and his wife paid of­fi­cial cour­tesy vis­its to the Pres­i­dent and Prime Min­is­ter.

Need­less to say, the top­ic of a gift was on the agen­da dur­ing the vis­it to the then Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and hav­ing heard the rea­sons for such a pro­pos­al, Man­ning im­me­di­ate­ly and with­out hes­i­ta­tion sug­gest­ed that the steel­pan be the gift and that T&T should be in­clud­ed, among oth­ers, on the in­ter­na­tion­al scene where such cos­mopoli­tan vis­i­tors to the In­ter­na­tion­al Tri­bunal could fa­mil­iarise them­selves with T&T’s steel­pan—the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

To­geth­er with Knowl­son Gift, then min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Sen­a­tor Joan Yuille–Williams and Patrick Ed­wards, then per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry, the gift was or­gan­ised and ac­com­pa­nied Jus­tice Lucky and his wife on their next vis­it to Ham­burg in March 2004. On March 14, 2004, at a for­mal cer­e­mo­ny held in the Ro­tun­da of the Tri­bunal which over­looks the riv­er Elbe, T&T’s na­tion­al flag was draped over the steel­pan. In at­ten­dance were the Pres­i­dent of the Tri­bunal, Judge Dol­liv­er Nel­son, as well as Judges and their wives, the Reg­is­trar, mem­bers of the Diplo­mat­ic corps res­i­dent in Ham­burg, Howard Kroch, Coun­sel for T&T, the staff of the Tri­bunal and the Me­dia.

Mrs Lucky had been asked by Man­ning to make the for­mal pre­sen­ta­tion on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of T&T.

She gave a com­pre­hen­sive his­to­ry of the ori­gins and evo­lu­tion of the steel­pan, em­pha­sis­ing the ver­sa­til­i­ty of its mu­sic and its in­clu­sion not on­ly in clas­si­cal mu­sic but al­so in var­i­ous cul­tur­al ren­di­tions, there­by fus­ing , cre­at­ing and har­mo­nious­ly pro­mot­ing to­geth­er­ness through mu­sic.

The for­mal part of the cer­e­mo­ny con­clud­ed with sev­er­al in­ter­est­ing ques­tions and com­ments about the his­to­ry and im­por­tance of the steel­pan, com­ments about its evo­lu­tion, and with judges and guests try­ing their hand at play­ing the pan.

The at­mos­phere was fur­ther en­hanced and en­riched with steel band mu­sic from a va­ri­ety of steel­pan mu­sic from sev­er­al arrangers and com­posers.

A brunch re­cep­tion fol­lowed.