T&T abstains from UN resolution on International Criminal Court report

Akash Sama­roo

Trinidad and To­ba­go ab­stained on a Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tion con­cern­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court’s an­nu­al re­port on Mon­day.

The re­port al­lows mem­ber states to ex­am­ine the court’s work and co­op­er­a­tion needs.

The res­o­lu­tion, A/81/L.11, was adopt­ed on No­vem­ber 2, with 93 coun­tries vot­ing in favour, 13 against and 36 ab­stain­ing, ac­cord­ing to the vot­ing record.

The Unit­ed States, Rus­sia, Is­rael and Ar­genti­na were among the coun­tries vot­ing against. Oth­ers in­clud­ed Be­larus, North Ko­rea, Nicaragua and Paraguay.

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of aban­don­ing the coun­try’s long­stand­ing sup­port for the in­sti­tu­tion.

Browne, an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor, crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, de­scrib­ing the ab­sten­tion as a de­par­ture from Trinidad and To­ba­go’s es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic po­si­tion.

“Un­der this UNC regime, Trinidad and To­ba­go has gone from a long­stand­ing po­si­tion of co-spon­sor­ing such Res­o­lu­tions in the past to now turn­ing its back on the ICC,” he said.

Browne ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of act­ing in sub­servience to a for­eign agen­da and said the de­ci­sion un­der­mined the lega­cy of for­mer pres­i­dent and prime min­is­ter Arthur Napoleon Ray­mond Robin­son.

“It is a de­val­u­a­tion of the lega­cy and work of ANR Robin­son, who was a pri­ma­ry in­spi­ra­tion for the for­ma­tion of the ICC to bring to jus­tice in­di­vid­ual per­pe­tra­tors of Crimes Against Hu­man­i­ty and oth­er ter­ri­ble atroc­i­ties,” he said.

UN his­tor­i­cal ac­counts cred­it Robin­son’s 1989 Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in­ter­ven­tion with re­viv­ing the pro­pos­al for an in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal court, help­ing ini­ti­ate ne­go­ti­a­tions that cul­mi­nat­ed in the adop­tion of the Rome Statute in 1998.

Ac­cord­ing to the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly pres­i­dent’s state­ment, the lat­est an­nu­al re­port cov­ers Au­gust 1, 2025, to Ju­ly 31, 2026. It out­lines the court’s ju­di­cial, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al, ad­min­is­tra­tive and in­sti­tu­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties, along­side its co­op­er­a­tion with the UN, gov­ern­ments and oth­er part­ners.

Browne de­scribed the ab­sten­tion as “a mark­er of the un­prin­ci­pled cow­ardice of the cur­rent UNC Cab­i­net”, say­ing it em­bar­rassed the coun­try’s diplo­mat­ic stand­ing.