Sport Diplo­ma­cy, so­cial jus­tice and hu­man rights are the top­ics, I have been in­vit­ed to speak on at the On­line Glob­al Con­fer­ence host­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Pro­to­col and Diplo­ma­cy. The con­fer­ence start­ed on Mon­day and will end on Fri­day.

The over­all theme of the con­fer­ence is - “The role of Diplo­ma­cy in Achiev­ing the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals 2030 Agen­da”.

When con­tact­ed by the con­fer­ence or­gan­is­ers with an in­vi­ta­tion to speak I was sur­prised but af­ter speak­ing with Pa­tri­cia Ken­neth Di­vine, Di­rec­tor of the In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Pro­to­col and Diplo­ma­cy, I ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge.

The pro­gramme, top­ics and list of speak­ers are im­pres­sive as is the over­all con­fer­ence theme: “Diplo­ma­cy and the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals 2030”.

To be iden­ti­fied and recog­nised by the or­gan­is­ers for my ad­vo­ca­cy and thought lead­er­ship on so­cial jus­tice and hu­man rights in glob­al Olympic and Com­mon­wealth sport is an en­cour­age­ment, in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion.

No mat­ter how in­tim­i­dat­ing the chal­lenge may ap­pear, I am al­ways keen to rep­re­sent the voice of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean on is­sues and top­ics that may fly un­der the na­tion­al and re­gion­al radar.

Diplo­ma­cy and the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals 2030 as a top­ic may not be a front burn­er and front-of-mind top­ic amongst Caribbean po­lit­i­cal, aca­d­e­m­ic, sport and pol­i­cy lead­ers and de­ci­sion-mak­ers. Diplo­ma­cy tra­di­tion­al­ly has been seen to be the sin­gu­lar purview of na­tion-states. Gov­ern­ments deal with diplo­ma­cy.

The main fea­tures of diplo­ma­cy are rep­re­sen­ta­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and ne­go­ti­a­tion. It has not been seen or giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion to non-gov­ern­men­tal agents. Re­search on sports diplo­ma­cy will show that some aca­d­e­mics and schol­ars claim that sports diplo­ma­cy is a new term that de­scribes an old prac­tice. They al­so posit that the pow­er of sport to ad­vance for­eign pol­i­cy or aug­ment sport for de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives re­mains elu­sive due to the lack of a ro­bust the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work.

Ar­ti­cles can be found that at­tempt to trace the aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­ture on sport diplo­ma­cy and iden­ti­fy the em­pir­i­cal, con­cep­tu­al and the­o­ret­i­cal frames used to study sport diplo­ma­cy.

Sport can be the face of a na­tion and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty for good or bad, neg­a­tive or pos­i­tive. In the Glob­al South in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean, we ig­nore sport diplo­ma­cy to our own per­il. Sport diplo­ma­cy cur­rent­ly is dri­ven and con­trolled by the Glob­al North and a few high-in­come coun­tries.

Sport is a ve­hi­cle for in­ter­na­tion­al out­reach, com­pet­i­tive­ness, job cre­ation and pover­ty erad­i­ca­tion and can max­imise trade, tourism and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. To this end, sport plays an im­por­tant role in eco­nom­ic and pub­lic diplo­ma­cy. Sport is an un­tapped re­source that can cre­ate gen­er­a­tional change to build a safer, stronger and safer world.

Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean need to have a sport diplo­ma­cy strate­gic plan sup­port­ed by the gov­ern­ment. We need to lever­aged sport (Sport Diplo­ma­cy) to strength­en our na­tion­al brand and in­ter­na­tion­al pro­file.

In the con­text of the Glob­al Con­fer­ence - Role of Diplo­ma­cy in Achiev­ing the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals, it’s a huge op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­volve Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean in an im­por­tant glob­al plat­form and con­ver­sa­tion - about sport diplo­ma­cy and the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goals.

Sport is a diplo­mat­ic as­set that can be used for in­ter­na­tion­al out­reach. Pow­er is a key con­cept in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions–hard pow­er and soft pow­er. In the art and sci­ence of mod­ern diplo­ma­cy sport is used to es­tab­lish rep­re­sen­ta­tion, cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel and man­age in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions by ne­go­ti­a­tion.

Mod­ern sport and pol­i­tics have been con­nect­ed for cen­turies. Rev­erend JC Well­don, Di­rec­tor of Har­row School once said: “It is writ­ten in the his­to­ry of the British Em­pire that Eng­land owes its sov­er­eign­ty to sports.”

George Or­well’s view was: “Sport is war with­out weapon”.

While French writer and diplo­mat Jean Gi­rau­doux be­lieved that: “Sport is Peace”.

Re­gard­less of the phi­los­o­phy, one may have about sport diplo­ma­cy. The Nel­son Man­dela school of thought po­si­tions sport as a plat­form for in­ter­na­tion­al di­a­logue. Sport Diplo­ma­cy as a strat­e­gy ought not to be ig­nored by Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean.