DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

An in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert has warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­ci­sion to vote against ex­tend­ing the tenure of the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights could have con­se­quences for the coun­try’s re­la­tion­ships with some in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing their will­ing­ness to share sen­si­tive in­tel­li­gence.

T&T stood alone in the Caribbean in vot­ing against ex­tend­ing the man­date of UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights Volk­er Türk un­til 2030, join­ing coun­tries in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, Rus­sia and North Ko­rea. Türk was nev­er­the­less reap­point­ed with the sup­port of 144 coun­tries, while ten op­posed his re­newed man­date and 13 ab­stained.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia by tele­phone yes­ter­day, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr Michal Paw­in­s­ki not­ed that sev­er­al coun­tries which vot­ed sim­i­lar­ly to T&T are al­so par­tic­i­pants in the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive. Ar­genti­na vot­ed against the ex­ten­sion, while Bo­livia and El Sal­vador did not cast a vote. Four oth­er par­tic­i­pants—the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ecuador, Guyana and Paraguay—ab­stained, while Chile, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Hon­duras and Pana­ma vot­ed in favour.

Paw­in­s­ki said the out­come sug­gests T&T is in­creas­ing­ly align­ing its for­eign pol­i­cy with that of the US. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that the move could un­der­mine con­fi­dence among some in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.

“It is send­ing a sig­nal to every­one else around, in­clud­ing the Cari­com coun­tries, that any for­eign pol­i­cy to­wards Trinidad has to be ap­proached cau­tious­ly as any­thing might lead, or it might feed the Unit­ed States in terms of in­tel­li­gence shar­ing, for ex­am­ple,” he said.

Paw­in­s­ki al­so ques­tioned how the vote aligns with T&T’s long­stand­ing sup­port for repa­ra­tions for the transat­lantic slave trade. He ar­gued that vot­ing against ex­tend­ing Türk’s man­date ap­pears in­con­sis­tent with the coun­try’s ad­vo­ca­cy for post-colo­nial jus­tice.

He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that the vote could of­fer in­sight in­to how T&T may ap­proach fu­ture mat­ters in­volv­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC).

“I’m aware that Trinidad has re­frained from mak­ing pub­lic state­ments, but it is po­ten­tial­ly in­di­cat­ing that per­haps fu­ture pres­sures might mean that de­ci­sions will be made by Trinidad in re­la­tion to the ICC.”

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an al­so weighed in on spec­u­la­tion sur­round­ing T&T’s re­la­tion­ship with the ICC amid the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued si­lence.

Speak­ing to re­porters out­side the Red House dur­ing a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny mark­ing the an­niver­sary of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup yes­ter­day, Dook­er­an warned against any move to with­draw from the court, not­ing that T&T played a lead­ing role in its es­tab­lish­ment.

Re­call­ing the ef­forts of for­mer prime min­is­ter ANR Robin­son to cham­pi­on the cre­ation of the ICC, Dook­er­an ar­gued that with­draw­ing from the in­sti­tu­tion would un­der­mine the coun­try’s own com­mit­ment to jus­tice.

Mean­while, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert and for­mer di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, agreed with Paw­in­s­ki that the vote re­flects a clos­er align­ment with the US. How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the de­ci­sion is dri­ven by strate­gic in­ter­ests, par­tic­u­lar­ly in in­tel­li­gence shar­ing and ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy.

“They are try­ing to en­dear them­selves more to the Unit­ed States and to Is­rael. And they’re pro­mot­ing stronger re­la­tions with Is­rael be­cause they want to get cer­tain things from Is­rael and cer­tain things from the Unit­ed States. For in­stance, what we talk­ing about, you read all that went on there with the Hadeeds there. What do you think is be­hind all of that? It’s the Unit­ed States and Is­rael and all the so­phis­ti­cat­ed equip­ment for mon­i­tor­ing peo­ple and so forth and lis­ten­ing to them.”

Un­like Paw­in­s­ki, Gon­za­les does not be­lieve the vote will dam­age T&T’s stand­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tions or af­fect its broad­er diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ships.

De­spite re­peat­ed phone calls and What­sApp mes­sages, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s re­quests for com­ment up to press time.