Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day de­clined to com­ment on the Unit­ed States’ re­cent cam­paign to dis­man­tle the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC), even as she met with a high-lev­el Amer­i­can del­e­ga­tion to dis­cuss strength­en­ing bi­lat­er­al ties.

Asked by Guardian Me­dia for her re­ac­tion to re­ports that the US in­tends to pres­sure coun­tries to with­draw sup­port for the ICC, the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed by stat­ing, “Not now.”

Her brief re­sponse came as the Gov­ern­ment host­ed a se­nior US del­e­ga­tion led by Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for Caribbean Af­fairs and Haiti Bar­bara Fe­in­stein, Chargé d’Af­faires Philip Kern and Chief Pol­i­cy Of­fi­cer of the US In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Fi­nance Cor­po­ra­tion (DFC) Car­o­line Vik.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease is­sued by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the meet­ing reaf­firmed the strong and en­dur­ing part­ner­ship be­tween T&T and the US, with dis­cus­sions cen­tred on ad­vanc­ing co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est.

“Un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships that cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties, pro­mote eco­nom­ic growth and en­hance the well-be­ing of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the re­lease added.

The Prime Min­is­ter was joined at the meet­ing by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence Do­minic Smith.

The meet­ing took place against the back­drop of grow­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern fol­low­ing US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio’s an­nounce­ment that Wash­ing­ton in­tends to dis­man­tle the Hague-based In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, ar­gu­ing that it threat­ens Amer­i­can sov­er­eign­ty and could ex­pose US mil­i­tary per­son­nel, bor­der agents and elect­ed of­fi­cials to po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed pros­e­cu­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports, the US al­so plans to pres­sure coun­tries to re­ject the ICC’s au­thor­i­ty, with pos­si­ble con­se­quences for those that refuse in­clud­ing sanc­tions, visa re­stric­tions and height­ened scruti­ny.

The de­vel­op­ment car­ries par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance for Trinidad and To­ba­go, which is wide­ly recog­nised as the “grand­fa­ther” of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court.

The coun­try’s late for­mer prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son spear­head­ed the glob­al ini­tia­tive in 1989 that re­vived ef­forts to es­tab­lish a per­ma­nent in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal court.

Guardian Me­dia is await­ing re­spons­es from for­mer ICC judges, in­clud­ing for­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, on the de­vel­op­ment.

Gon­za­les: Wait and see

For­mer di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, be­lieves T&T should avoid mak­ing any im­me­di­ate de­ci­sions and in­stead as­sess how the sit­u­a­tion de­vel­ops.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said it was too ear­ly to de­ter­mine whether the US po­si­tion would have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for T&T.

“We would have to de­cide whether this is not in our in­ter­est and then come out of it. But all I’m say­ing is that I think we have to wait and see how this thing may go.”

Gon­za­les ar­gued that the cur­rent US pol­i­cy di­rec­tion may not be per­ma­nent, point­ing to pos­si­ble po­lit­i­cal changes in Wash­ing­ton over the next sev­er­al years.

Gon­za­les said T&T should on­ly re­con­sid­er its sup­port for the ICC if sus­tained pres­sure from Wash­ing­ton made con­tin­ued mem­ber­ship con­trary to the coun­try’s in­ter­ests.

Mean­while, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions An­tho­ny Bryan of­fered a more res­olute po­si­tion, urg­ing T&T and oth­er ICC mem­ber states not to bow to pres­sure from Wash­ing­ton.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Bryan said mem­ber coun­tries should re­main stead­fast in their sup­port for the court.

“T&T and oth­er mem­bers should stay strong with the ICC. They will win out af­ter all is said and done. The State De­part­ment is way out­side its or­bit.”

What is the ICC?

The In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) in­ves­ti­gates and, where war­rant­ed, tries in­di­vid­u­als charged with the gravest crimes of con­cern to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty: geno­cide, war crimes, crimes against hu­man­i­ty and the crime of ag­gres­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion ob­tained from the ICC’s web­site, the Court is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a glob­al fight to end im­puni­ty, and through in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice, the Court aims to hold those re­spon­si­ble ac­count­able for their crimes and to help pre­vent these crimes from hap­pen­ing again.