Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Unit­ed States cam­paign to dis­man­tle the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) has prompt­ed warn­ings in Trinidad and To­ba­go, with for­mer NAR and UNC min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an say­ing any move to weak­en or aban­don the court would have pro­found im­pli­ca­tions for glob­al ju­rispru­dence.

At the same time, Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah has urged the Gov­ern­ment not to sup­port the US ef­fort, say­ing it would un­der­mine the lega­cy of late for­mer prime min­is­ter ANR Robin­son, whose ini­tia­tive helped cre­ate the ICC. Sim­i­lar­ly, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment not to re­main silent on the mat­ter.

Mean­while, for­mer NAR and UNC min­is­ter Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie be­lieves T&T, as a sig­na­to­ry to the ICC, should “say noth­ing and do noth­ing but car­ry on with its busi­ness.”

These views came yes­ter­day fol­low­ing US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio’s vow on Mon­day that the US would dis­man­tle the ICC, urg­ing oth­er coun­tries to do the same.

The US has re­ject­ed ICC at­tempts to in­ves­ti­gate the US and Is­rael, dis­missed views that its dead­ly boat strikes on al­leged nar­co-ter­ror­ists vi­o­lat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al law and re­buffed calls for the ICC to probe US strikes on Iran.

State De­part­ment of­fi­cials said na­tions re­fus­ing to re­ject the ICC while re­ly­ing on US as­sis­tance are like­ly to come un­der in­creased scruti­ny.

Coun­tries that are par­ties to the ICC will be per­suad­ed to with­draw from it and fi­nan­cial sup­port cut.

The ICC came in­to be­ing af­ter Robin­son’s 1989 ad­dress to the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly propos­ing a per­ma­nent in­ter­na­tion­al court to con­front drug traf­fick­ing, geno­cide, war crimes and crimes against hu­man­i­ty. T&T was the third coun­try to sign the ICC’s found­ing treaty.

For­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona and Ap­peal Court Judge Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son served as ICC judges, re­spec­tive­ly, from 2012 to 2013 and 2013 to 2021.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Dook­er­an said the mat­ter is of grave con­cern and should be dis­cour­aged.

“The ICC serves as the world’s on­ly crim­i­nal tri­bunal to ad­ju­di­cate on crimes against hu­man­i­ty where na­tion­al ju­di­cial sys­tems are un­will­ing or un­able to act. It’s pred­i­cat­ed on the prin­ci­ple that no in­di­vid­ual, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal of­fice or mil­i­tary au­thor­i­ty, should be be­yond the reach of jus­tice.

“Any move­ment to aban­don or weak­en sup­port for the ICC has pro­found im­pli­ca­tions for glob­al ju­rispru­dence. With­draw­al from the ICC risks erod­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al rule of law and the prin­ci­ple of ac­count­abil­i­ty for atroc­i­ty crimes.”

He added, “In an era of ter­ror­ist net­works, the need for ro­bust glob­al in­sti­tu­tions has be­come more – not less- im­por­tant. It’s premised on safe­guard­ing hu­man dig­ni­ty, and the pur­suit of jus­tice and the rule of law.”

Don’t de­stroy Robin­son’s work—Ab­du­lah

Ab­du­lah said his re­cent com­ments on Is­rael and geno­cide of Pales­tini­ans cit­ed the ICC’s im­por­tance and re­mind­ed the Gov­ern­ment and Cari­com that the ICC was brought in­to be­ing large­ly by Robin­son’s ad­vo­ca­cy and work.

Cit­ing ICC war­rants for Is­rael’s leader and De­fence Min­is­ter for war crimes, Ab­du­lah said if For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers ac­cept­ed Is­rael’s in­vi­ta­tion to vis­it, “it would be a be­tray­al of what Mr Robin­son fought for re­gard­ing the ICC (and the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice) and a slap in the face to his work - he’d be turn­ing in his grave.”

Say noth­ing—Tewarie

Tewarie said, “US op­po­si­tion to the ICC isn’t new. It’s ob­ject­ed to the ICC on con­sti­tu­tion­al grounds, on sov­er­eign­ty, on the ba­sis that the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil has no pow­er over it and that be­ing a coun­try with glob­al reach and spread, it doesn’t want its politi­cians, diplo­mats and mil­i­tary of­fi­cials sub­ject to in­ter­na­tion­al law.

“The US, in sign­ing agree­ments with coun­tries, ex­cludes the ICC from ju­ris­dic­tion with coun­tries who sign. T&T as a sig­na­to­ry to the ICC needs say noth­ing, do noth­ing, but car­ry on with its busi­ness.”

Si­lence on ICC not an op­tion—Vieira

Vieira said T&T should not be silent while one of its great­est con­tri­bu­tions to in­ter­na­tion­al jus­tice is placed in jeop­ardy. He said this should con­cern every na­tion com­mit­ted to the rule of law - par­tic­u­lar­ly T&T.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, the ques­tion con­cerns the kind of in­ter­na­tion­al or­der we wish to pre­serve. The true test of the rule of law is not whether it re­strains the weak. It’s whether it’s ca­pa­ble of re­strain­ing the pow­er­ful. If in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice is aban­doned when­ev­er it be­comes in­con­ve­nient to pow­er­ful states, then the promise that ‘no one is above the law’ be­comes lit­tle more than rhetoric,” Vieira said.

He said the ICC has faced le­git­i­mate crit­i­cism over de­lays, un­even en­force­ment and ques­tions sur­round­ing its ef­fec­tive­ness.

“Those con­cerns de­serve se­ri­ous dis­cus­sion; they’re ar­gu­ments for re­form and im­prove­ment, but not for dis­man­tling the in­sti­tu­tion al­to­geth­er.”