DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has for­mal­ly pro­posed re­fer­ring Trinidad and To­ba­go’s dis­pute over the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), while Ja­maica is urg­ing re­gion­al lead­ers to strength­en en­gage­ment with Port-of-Spain, warn­ing that the con­tro­ver­sy has ex­posed di­vi­sions with­in the re­gion­al bloc.

The is­sue was among those be­fore Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment, who met be­hind closed doors in St Lu­cia yes­ter­day. The heads-on­ly re­treat was sched­uled to run from 10 am to 3 pm, but Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands dis­cus­sions con­tin­ued sev­er­al hours be­yond the planned end time.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar out­lined T&T’s po­si­tion in a 22-page let­ter dat­ed Ju­ly 3 and ad­dressed to all Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment.

In the let­ter, she ar­gued that the process used to reap­point Bar­nett did not com­ply with the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas and should be re­solved through the treaty’s own le­gal mech­a­nism rather than po­lit­i­cal ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that the dis­pute is “not di­rect­ed to­wards any in­di­vid­ual” but con­cerns “the le­gal­i­ty of the process adopt­ed, the in­tegri­ty of our in­sti­tu­tions and the faith­ful ob­ser­vance of the con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work es­tab­lished by the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.”

She pro­posed that Cari­com Heads joint­ly re­quest an ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion from the CCJ un­der Ar­ti­cle 212 of the Re­vised Treaty and agree in ad­vance to abide by the court’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

Among the in­ter­im mea­sures pro­posed are ex­tend­ing Bar­nett’s tenure on a month-to-month ba­sis if her cur­rent term ex­pires be­fore the court rules, re­quir­ing both the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and Cari­com’s Gen­er­al Coun­sel to re­cuse them­selves from mat­ters re­lat­ing to the ad­vi­so­ry pro­ceed­ings, and avoid­ing ir­re­versible ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sions while the le­gal ques­tions are be­ing de­ter­mined.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said T&T would im­me­di­ate­ly recog­nise Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment if the CCJ finds it was law­ful­ly made. If the court con­cludes oth­er­wise, the Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al would con­tin­ue as act­ing Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al un­til a new ap­point­ment is made in ac­cor­dance with the court’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the treaty.

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Pro­fes­sor Michał Paw­ińs­ki said the Prime Min­is­ter’s lat­est ap­proach sig­nalled a more diplo­mat­ic tone.

“It shows a cer­tain lev­el of ma­tu­ri­ty by Trinidad and To­ba­go in ap­proach­ing the ten­sions of the ap­point­ment or reap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett,” Paw­ińs­ki said yes­ter­day.

He al­so linked the move to T&T’s up­com­ing role on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“I think this is con­nect­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion, hav­ing been ap­point­ed as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber to the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. So, as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber, right now Trinidad al­so has to care about its pub­lic im­age, its in­ter­na­tion­al im­age.”

Re­gion­al po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Pe­ter Wick­ham al­so wel­comed the shift in strat­e­gy, say­ing the mat­ter was now be­ing han­dled through the ap­pro­pri­ate diplo­mat­ic chan­nels.

“I think the im­por­tant thing is that the com­mu­ni­ca­tion is be­ing done through the chan­nels that should have been used in the first place, which is di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the heads on a mul­ti­lat­er­al ba­sis and be­ing done dis­creet­ly out of the gaze of pub­lic view, which was al­ways my is­sue.”

He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lat­est cor­re­spon­dence pro­ject­ed a dif­fer­ent mes­sage from the Gov­ern­ment’s ear­li­er pub­lic stance.

“This is the thing that cer­tain­ly many of us were ques­tion­ing. We didn’t get that sense. We got the sense that she was pick­ing a fight and not that there was a com­mit­ment to Cari­com,” Wick­ham said.

Wick­ham al­so en­dorsed the pro­pos­al to seek the CCJ’s guid­ance. How­ev­er, he does not be­lieve many re­gion­al lead­ers are ea­ger to re­vis­it the is­sue.

How­ev­er, at least one leader, Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, has writ­ten sep­a­rate­ly ex­press­ing con­cern that the dis­pute re­mains un­re­solved.

In a Ju­ly 5 let­ter to Cari­com chair­man and St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J Pierre, Hol­ness said it was clear there was a dis­agree­ment with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty.

“It has be­come clear that we were not all on the same page. There­fore, it is im­por­tant that any con­cerns be ad­dressed in a mean­ing­ful man­ner to re­store co­he­sion, if not uni­ty, which is in­dis­pens­able to the ef­fec­tive func­tion­ing of Cari­com,” Hol­ness wrote.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that Ja­maica is not seek­ing to over­turn Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment but be­lieves the han­dling of the is­sue has dam­aged re­gion­al co­he­sion and at­tract­ed in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion.

“This is­sue has ex­posed our Com­mu­ni­ty to ques­tions and ex­pres­sions of con­cern from both our cit­i­zens and de­vel­op­ment part­ners, all of whom are pay­ing close at­ten­tion to the man­ner in which we re­solve this mat­ter. Con­fi­dence in our Com­mu­ni­ty is crit­i­cal—among our cit­i­zens, Mem­ber States and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners—par­tic­u­lar­ly at this junc­ture where we are seek­ing to di­ver­si­fy our part­ner­ships and de­vel­op­ment sup­port,” Hol­ness wrote.

“I reaf­firm, at the out­set, that Ja­maica is not by this let­ter seek­ing to over­turn the de­ci­sion that was tak­en in Feb­ru­ary 2026 to reap­point Dr Car­la Bar­nett as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of Cari­com. How­ev­er, I re­main con­cerned that the ap­proach tak­en has nei­ther re­solved the mat­ter nor pro­mot­ed the spir­it and goals of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.”

Hol­ness fur­ther ar­gued that the process fol­lowed dur­ing the Feb­ru­ary meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis de­part­ed from pre­vi­ous prac­tice and Cari­com’s Rules of Pro­ce­dure.

“We can agree that the tim­ing and the process of the reap­point­ment that was un­der­tak­en in St Kitts and Nevis in Feb­ru­ary 2026, con­sti­tut­ed a de­par­ture from not on­ly pre­vi­ous prac­tice, but from the Rules of Pro­ce­dure es­tab­lished by the Con­fer­ence.”

Call­ing for re­newed di­a­logue, he urged “re­flec­tion as well as fo­cused and strength­ened en­gage­ment with Trinidad and To­ba­go at both the lev­el of Heads of Gov­ern­ment and the Sec­re­tari­at.”