T&T to face scrutiny over emergency powers, detention in UN review

SOURCE: Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC)

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s hu­man rights record will come un­der scruti­ny at the Unit­ed Na­tions next week, with sub­mis­sions from civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er stake­hold­ers rais­ing con­cerns about emer­gency pow­ers, prison con­di­tions, gen­der-based vi­o­lence, dis­crim­i­na­tion and the treat­ment of mi­grants.

The coun­try is sched­uled to un­der­go its fourth Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view (UPR) be­fore the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil’s Work­ing Group in Gene­va on No­vem­ber 9.

The re­view will as­sess progress in im­ple­ment­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from pre­vi­ous cy­cles and con­sid­er re­cent de­vel­op­ments in the coun­try’s hu­man rights sit­u­a­tion.

A re­port by the Of­fice of the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights, sum­maris­ing sub­mis­sions from 13 stake­hold­ers, iden­ti­fies a range of con­cerns while al­so ac­knowl­edg­ing gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives and progress in spe­cif­ic ar­eas.

Among the is­sues raised is the re­peat­ed use of States of Emer­gency since 2024 to ad­dress crime. Stake­hold­ers ex­pressed con­cern about ex­pand­ed po­lice and mil­i­tary pow­ers, in­clud­ing search, seizure and de­ten­tion, and the im­pli­ca­tions for ju­di­cial over­sight and in­di­vid­ual rights.

One sub­mis­sion cau­tioned against re­ly­ing on emer­gency mea­sures as a long-term crime-con­trol strat­e­gy and called for stronger po­lice train­ing, the en­force­ment of body-worn cam­era use, im­proved crime-pre­ven­tion plans and leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing po­lice use of force.

The re­port al­so high­lights con­cerns about de­ten­tion con­di­tions, over­crowd­ing and pro­longed pre-tri­al de­ten­tion. Stake­hold­ers called for in­de­pen­dent mon­i­tor­ing of de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties, stronger ju­di­cial over­sight and greater use of al­ter­na­tives to re­mand.

The death penal­ty is an­oth­er ma­jor is­sue. One stake­hold­er sub­mis­sion re­port­ed that 48 peo­ple were un­der sen­tence of death in 2026 and raised con­cerns about the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der and trea­son, which it said pre­vent­ed courts from con­sid­er­ing in­di­vid­ual cir­cum­stances and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors.

Rec­om­men­da­tions in­clud­ed abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty, es­tab­lish­ing a for­mal mora­to­ri­um on ex­e­cu­tions and re­view­ing ex­ist­ing death sen­tences.

Gen­der-based vi­o­lence al­so fea­tures promi­nent­ly in the sub­mis­sions. While stake­hold­ers ac­knowl­edged ini­tia­tives such as the Na­tion­al Strate­gic Ac­tion Plan on Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence and Sex­u­al Vi­o­lence for 2023–2027, they said vi­o­lence against women re­mained wide­spread, and vic­tims con­tin­ued to face bar­ri­ers in ac­cess­ing jus­tice and pro­tec­tion.

The sub­mis­sions al­so raised con­cerns about the ab­sence of an in­de­pen­dent na­tion­al hu­man rights in­sti­tu­tion and the le­gal pro­tec­tions avail­able to les­bian, gay, bi­sex­u­al, trans­gen­der and in­ter­sex (LGB­TIQ+) peo­ple.

One sub­mis­sion not­ed that Sec­tions 13 and 16 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act were re­in­stat­ed fol­low­ing a 2025 Court of Ap­peal rul­ing, leav­ing con­sen­su­al same-sex sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty be­tween adult men crim­i­nalised. It called for the re­peal of the pro­vi­sions and, in the in­ter­im, a mora­to­ri­um on their en­force­ment.

On mi­gra­tion, stake­hold­ers high­light­ed the ab­sence of a com­pre­hen­sive do­mes­tic frame­work for refugees and asy­lum seek­ers, as well as con­cerns about pro­longed de­ten­tion, de­por­ta­tion and ac­cess to le­gal pro­tec­tion.

Oth­er is­sues raised in­clude the work­ing con­di­tions of for­eign med­ical mis­sion per­son­nel, child pro­tec­tion, hu­man traf­fick­ing, the rights of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and the im­pact of cli­mate change on vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

The sub­mis­sions al­so ques­tioned the in­de­pen­dence and ef­fec­tive­ness of en­vi­ron­men­tal gov­er­nance, in­clud­ing the role of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, and called for stronger le­gal pro­tec­tion of the right to a clean, healthy and sus­tain­able en­vi­ron­ment.

The UPR is a peer-re­view process through which the hu­man rights records of all 193 UN mem­ber states are ex­am­ined. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pre­vi­ous re­views took place in Oc­to­ber 2011, May 2016 and No­vem­ber 2021.

The coun­try’s del­e­ga­tion will be led by Chamyantie Lal, Chargée d’Af­faires at its Per­ma­nent Mis­sion to the UN Of­fice in Gene­va.

An­go­la, Colom­bia and the Nether­lands will serve as rap­por­teurs for the re­view. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)