Ear­ly Life and Aca­d­e­m­ic Foun­da­tion

Born on March 7, 1953, in the coastal vil­lage of Los Char­ros, Pa­lo Seco (with strong roots in Fyz­abad), An­tho­ny Thomas Aquinas Car­mona is the el­dest of six chil­dren born to Den­nis Stephen and Bar­bara Car­mona. Raised in a Ro­man Catholic house­hold, he at­tend­ed San­ta Flo­ra Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School while his fam­i­ly resided in Dal­ley’s Vil­lage, San­ta Flo­ra, be­fore pass­ing the Com­mon En­trance ex­am­i­na­tion for Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do.

Car­mona went on to earn a Bach­e­lor of Arts with Spe­cial Ho­n­ours in Eng­lish and Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Mona cam­pus in Ja­maica, fol­lowed by a Bach­e­lor of Laws from UWI Cave Hill in Bar­ba­dos. Ded­i­cat­ed to ed­u­ca­tion ear­ly in his ca­reer, he taught lan­guage and lin­guis­tics at UWI from 1981 to 1983 and lat­er served as a se­nior tu­tor in pol­i­tics in the De­part­ment of Gov­ern­ment for four years. His teach­ing back­ground al­so spans sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion at Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School and Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary School in Trinidad, as well as St Hugh’s High School and Mer­le Grove High School in Kingston, Ja­maica.

Le­gal and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al ca­reer

Fol­low­ing his pro­fes­sion­al le­gal train­ing at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, Car­mona was ad­mit­ted to the Bar of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1983. This launched a 21-year tenure in state pros­e­cu­tion at the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), where he ad­vanced from State Coun­sel to Se­nior State At­tor­ney, As­sis­tant DPP, Deputy DPP, and Act­ing DPP. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, he se­cured land­mark an­ti-cor­rup­tion con­vic­tions, in­clud­ing the first suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion in the British Com­mon­wealth of a Se­nior Mag­is­trate (Patrick Jages­sar) and a Court of Ap­peal con­vic­tion of a Jus­tice of the Peace (Farouk Ali).

In recog­ni­tion of his le­gal mas­tery, Car­mona was con­ferred the rank of Se­nior Coun­sel (“Silk”) in 2000. Be­yond court­room pros­e­cu­tion, he rep­re­sent­ed the DPP’s of­fice on the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed Leg­isla­tive Re­view Com­mit­tee, help­ing for­mu­late and vet crit­i­cal na­tion­al leg­is­la­tion—in­clud­ing the Pro­ceeds of Crime Bill, the DNA Bill, the Bail Act, the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Bill, and the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court Statute. He al­so ad­vised the Min­istries of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and For­eign Af­fairs on re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al treaties, con­tributed to the Na­tion­al Al­co­hol and Drug Abuse Pro­gramme, and served as a one-man Dis­ci­pli­nary Tri­bunal in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­leged mis­con­duct among se­nior civ­il ser­vants.

In­ter­na­tion­al ju­rispru­dence

and the bench

Car­mona’s le­gal ex­per­tise ex­tend­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­to in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an law. He served as Le­gal Ad­vis­er in crim­i­nal law to Pres­i­dent Arthur N.R. Robin­son re­gard­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) and par­tic­i­pat­ed in meet­ings of the ICC Prepara­to­ry Com­mit­tee.

From 2001 to 2004, Car­mona served as Ap­peals Coun­sel in the Of­fice of the Pros­e­cu­tor at the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Tri­bunal for the for­mer Yu­goslavia (IC­TY) in The Hague and the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Tri­bunal for Rwan­da (IC­TR) in Arusha. In this ca­pac­i­ty, he suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cut­ed ap­peals against con­vict­ed gen­er­als, camp com­man­ders, sol­diers, and politi­cians. Dur­ing his tenure at the IC­TY, he was elect­ed Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Staff Union and rep­re­sent­ed UN per­son­nel in dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tions Ad­min­is­tra­tive Tri­bunal in New York.

In 2004, Car­mona was ap­point­ed a High Court Judge of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and To­ba­go, serv­ing in the Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion where he be­came known for his can­did, prin­ci­pled ap­proach on the Bench. On De­cem­ber 12, 2011, he was elect­ed a Judge of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court.

Pres­i­den­cy and glob­al lead­er­ship

An­tho­ny Car­mona was sworn in as the 5th Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, serv­ing a five-year term from 2013 to 2018. His pres­i­den­cy was de­fined by an em­pha­sis on de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance, in­tegri­ty, hu­man rights, and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

On May 4, 2019, he was award­ed the World Peace Cul­ture Award in recog­ni­tion of his life­long ser­vice to in­ter­na­tion­al peace, jus­tice, and the rule of law. Ex­tend­ing his com­mit­ment to glob­al ad­vo­ca­cy, he serves as an Hon­orary Ad­vi­so­ry Board mem­ber for Unit­ed World Lead­ers: Lives Am­pli­fied, lever­ag­ing his in­ter­na­tion­al net­work to sup­port glob­al gov­er­nance ini­tia­tives.

He is mar­ried to Reema Har­rysingh-Car­mona, and to­geth­er they have two chil­dren.