Trinidad and Tobago wins seat on UN Security Council

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

For the sec­ond time in this na­tion’s his­to­ry, Trinidad and To­ba­go will have a seat at the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

To­day at the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Head­quar­ters in New York, T&T was elect­ed as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber for the 2027-2028 term.

The coun­try ran un­op­posed for the sin­gle avail­able seat al­lo­cat­ed to the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Group (GRU­LAC), po­si­tioned to suc­ceed Pana­ma.

T&T re­ceived 181 votes out of 191 coun­tries. Nine coun­tries ab­stained. T&T on­ly need­ed 122 votes to se­cure vic­to­ry.

To se­cure a non-per­ma­nent seat, a coun­try must win a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty of the mem­ber states present and vot­ing via a se­cret bal­lot in the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

T&T had pre­vi­ous­ly served a two-year term as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber forty years ago, span­ning 1985 to 1986.

The vote was done by se­cret bal­lot in the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Hall.

Com­ment­ing im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the elec­toral vic­to­ry, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers put out a me­dia re­lease.

He cred­it­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's lead­er­ship and diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment for the suc­cess­ful bid, not­ing that the cam­paign was launched dur­ing her par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York in Sep­tem­ber 2025.

"Since then, the Prime Min­is­ter has been in con­stant con­tact and per­son­al di­a­logue with sev­er­al world lead­ers to ad­vance the coun­try's bid," the min­istry stat­ed. It added that the vic­to­ry was a tes­ta­ment to her "vi­sion, ded­i­ca­tion and stead­fast lead­er­ship" in pro­mot­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go's in­ter­ests in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

He said the coun­try's cam­paign was con­duct­ed un­der the theme, "Build­ing Con­sen­sus for the Re­al­iza­tion of Sus­tain­able Peace and Se­cu­ri­ty," and fo­cused on three key ar­eas: com­bat­ing the il­lic­it traf­fick­ing of small arms and light weapons, ad­vanc­ing the agen­da of women and chil­dren in peace and se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters, and ad­dress­ing the im­pli­ca­tions of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence on glob­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The min­istry not­ed that the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is the most pow­er­ful body with­in the Unit­ed Na­tions sys­tem and is pri­mar­i­ly re­spon­si­ble for main­tain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

It said Trinidad and To­ba­go's elec­tion would strength­en the coun­try's diplo­mat­ic stand­ing, el­e­vate its voice on glob­al is­sues and cre­ate new op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships and en­gage­ment.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) is com­prised of 15 mem­bers: five per­ma­nent mem­bers with ve­to pow­er, the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, France, Rus­sia, and Chi­na, and ten non-per­ma­nent mem­bers elect­ed for two-year terms by the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly to en­sure re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Un­der the UN Char­ter, its pri­ma­ry role and func­tion is the main­te­nance of in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty. To achieve this, the Coun­cil is unique­ly em­pow­ered to in­ves­ti­gate glob­al dis­putes, me­di­ate con­flicts, im­ple­ment bind­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions, de­ploy UN peace­keep­ing forces, and, when diplo­mat­ic ef­forts fail, au­tho­rise col­lec­tive mil­i­tary ac­tion to en­force its de­ci­sions and re­store glob­al sta­bil­i­ty.