T&T under fire for ICC vote abstention

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

An­a­lysts and po­lit­i­cal ob­servers are ex­press­ing con­cern over Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­ci­sion to ab­stain from vot­ing on a Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tion on the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court.

Some are ques­tion­ing what this coun­try stands to gain from the move, while oth­ers be­lieve the ab­sten­tion is the first step to­wards ful­ly sup­port­ing Wash­ing­ton’s stance to dis­man­tle the court.

On Mon­day, T&T ab­stained when the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly con­sid­ered res­o­lu­tion A/81/L.11, which wel­comed the ICC’s an­nu­al re­port cov­er­ing its ac­tiv­i­ties from Au­gust 1, 2025, to Ju­ly 31, 2026. The an­nu­al re­port of the ICC to the Unit­ed Na­tions doc­u­ments its ac­tiv­i­ties and cov­ers on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, tri­als, and ap­peals across mul­ti­ple sit­u­a­tions. 

The res­o­lu­tion was adopt­ed with 93 coun­tries vot­ing in favour, 13 against and 36 ab­stain­ing.

The Unit­ed States, Rus­sia, Is­rael and Ar­genti­na were among those vot­ing against the res­o­lu­tion.

Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty coun­tries like Ja­maica, An­tigua and Do­mini­ca were not present for the vote, while Bar­ba­dos and Guyana vot­ed in favour of the res­o­lu­tion.

The move by T&T comes al­most a week af­ter this coun­try vot­ed against a UN res­o­lu­tion call­ing for an end to the US eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial and fi­nan­cial em­bar­go on Cu­ba. That vote oc­curred on Wednes­day, Oc­to­ber 28.

The ICC was es­tab­lished af­ter late for­mer prime min­is­ter ANR Robin­son’s 1989 ad­dress to the UN­GA 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.

Wash­ing­ton has ar­gued that the ICC has ex­ceed­ed its au­thor­i­ty and threat­ens na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty. 

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has since sanc­tioned 17 ICC judges, pros­e­cu­tors and of­fi­cials. On Oc­to­ber 9, it es­ca­lat­ed its cam­paign with fi­nan­cial sanc­tions against the court it­self.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said that while T&T’s de­ci­sion may have been in­flu­enced by the coun­try’s re­la­tion­ships with pow­er­ful in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers, the ab­sence of an of­fi­cial ex­pla­na­tion has left im­por­tant ques­tions unan­swered.

James said vot­ing on in­ter­na­tion­al res­o­lu­tions is of­ten a strate­gic ex­er­cise, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small­er coun­tries nav­i­gat­ing re­la­tion­ships with more pow­er­ful na­tions.

He ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion was in­flu­enced by a de­sire to avoid dis­pleas­ing in­flu­en­tial coun­tries, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Unit­ed States.

He said: “The ques­tion is, how did we ben­e­fit from vot­ing for, in the past? And the ques­tion aris­es now: why did this cur­rent Gov­ern­ment ab­stain? In oth­er words, they are tak­ing a neu­tral po­si­tion on the res­o­lu­tion.”

He ar­gued that small­er and less pow­er­ful na­tions have a vest­ed in­ter­est in sup­port­ing in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and mech­a­nisms that pro­mote ac­count­abil­i­ty and pro­tect them from the in­flu­ence of pow­er­ful states.

“If you ask me if I were to have the au­thor­i­ty to vote on be­half of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I would con­vince my col­leagues that…as part of the ini­tia­tives of younger, small­er, weak­er, less pow­er­ful na­tions to move for­ward in the world, that it would be good for us to band to­geth­er and vote in sup­port,” he said.

But he warned that small­er coun­tries could find them­selves vul­ner­a­ble to the eco­nom­ic and diplo­mat­ic con­se­quences of op­pos­ing pow­er­ful states.

How­ev­er, James stopped short of de­fin­i­tive­ly con­demn­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion, say­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the ab­sten­tion and its con­se­quences must first be ex­am­ined.

But Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) Po­lit­i­cal Leader David Ab­du­lah did not hes­i­tate to con­demn T&T’s de­ci­sion, de­scrib­ing it as an­oth­er stain on the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion.

Ab­du­lah said the ab­sten­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling giv­en this coun­try’s his­toric role in bring­ing the ICC in­to ex­is­tence and its long­stand­ing con­nec­tions with the in­sti­tu­tion.

He re­called that it was for­mer prime min­is­ter and Pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son who re­vived the pro­pos­al for an ICC at the UN, adding that T&T con­tin­ued to main­tain a close re­la­tion­ship with the in­sti­tu­tion through its ju­di­cial con­tri­bu­tions.

Ab­du­lah not­ed that for­mer Pres­i­dents served at the ICC, while oth­er na­tion­als had al­so held po­si­tions with­in the court.

He said the US po­si­tion to­wards the ICC raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about the in­sti­tu­tion’s fu­ture and ques­tioned whether T&T’s ab­sten­tion sig­nalled an align­ment with Wash­ing­ton’s po­si­tion.

“The US Sec­re­tary of State, Mar­co Ru­bio, said that it must be dis­band­ed. And quite clear­ly, that is what they’re work­ing to­wards, and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ab­sten­tion is the first step to­wards ful­ly sup­port­ing Wash­ing­ton on the dis­band­ment of the ICC,” Ab­du­lah said.

He warned that the de­ci­sion could have wider diplo­mat­ic im­pli­ca­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly as this coun­try pre­pares to take up a seat on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in Jan­u­ary.

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter of for­eign af­fairs Win­ston Dook­er­an said he was sad­dened by T&T’s ab­sten­tion, warn­ing that the coun­try risks dis­tanc­ing it­self from a lega­cy it helped es­tab­lish.

Dook­er­an re­called T&T’s piv­otal role in ad­vanc­ing the idea of an in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal court, de­scrib­ing it as a rare achieve­ment for a small Caribbean na­tion in glob­al diplo­ma­cy.

He said he was part of the gov­ern­ment at the time, when then-prime min­is­ter Robin­son made the push for the ICC. He said he al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in ef­forts to se­cure sup­port from Com­mon­wealth coun­tries for the ini­tia­tive.

“It was a clear recog­ni­tion of what a small coun­try can do in the glob­al pol­i­tics to­day, and es­pe­cial­ly in the field of jus­tice. So we prid­ed that event for all these years,” he said.

Dook­er­an said Robin­son de­served recog­ni­tion for his fore­sight and de­ter­mi­na­tion to es­tab­lish an in­ter­na­tion­al mech­a­nism to hold per­pe­tra­tors of se­ri­ous atroc­i­ties ac­count­able.

Against that back­ground, Dook­er­an said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly sad­dened by the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ab­stain at a time when the court’s in­de­pen­dence is fac­ing mount­ing chal­lenges.

“So to­day, when I heard that our coun­try ab­stained in what is a mo­ment of great threat to this in­sti­tu­tion, I felt very sad­dened,” he said.

He warned that the in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate, marked by con­flicts in­creas­ing­ly be­ing re­solved through war­fare, makes the in­de­pen­dence of in­sti­tu­tions such as the ICC even more im­por­tant.

Dook­er­an said re­ports of threats against the court and at­tempts to un­der­mine its ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence should con­cern the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

He de­scribed the po­ten­tial dis­man­tling of the in­sti­tu­tion as one of the great­est tragedies, should those threats ma­te­ri­alise.

His com­ments come as an­oth­er for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of aban­don­ing T&T long­stand­ing sup­port for the ICC.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, de­scrib­ing the ab­sten­tion as a de­par­ture from the coun­try’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,” Browne said.

He al­so ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of act­ing in sub­servience to a for­eign agen­da and un­der­min­ing Robin­son’s lega­cy. “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.

Guardian Me­dia is await­ing a re­sponse from For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers to ques­tions about Gov­ern­ment’s ab­sten­tion.

Ad­dress­ing the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Mon­day, ICC Pres­i­dent Tomoko Akane warned that the court was fac­ing an un­prece­dent­ed chal­lenge to its in­de­pen­dence amid mount­ing sanc­tions and in­tim­i­da­tion tar­get­ing its judges and pros­e­cu­tors.

Akane, who ad­dressed the As­sem­bly vir­tu­al­ly af­ter be­ing sub­ject­ed to Unit­ed States sanc­tions, said: “When Judges are pun­ished for their de­ci­sions, whether through sanc­tions or through crim­i­nal con­vic­tions, it is not on­ly those Judges who are tar­get­ed, but ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence it­self,” she said.

The res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly con­demned threats, at­tacks and in­ter­fer­ence against the ICC and its per­son­nel, while wel­com­ing the court’s an­nu­al re­port.