May 16, 2009

Duke Pollard CJC endorsed as a candidate to seek election as a judge of the ICC.

Region bids for ICC seat
Source: Trinidad news

CARICOM Foreign Ministers have endorsed candidatures for a seat on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and re-election of an Assistant Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Guyana-born jurist Dr Duke Pollard, currently one of the seven justices of the Port of Spain-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), has been endorsed as a candidate to seek election as a judge of the ICC.

The current Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, Suriname-born diplomat, Albert Ramdin, was given the green light to seek re-election in that post of the Washington-based hemispheric organisation.

The unanimous endorsements, which came during last week's meeting of Caricom Foreign Ministers in Kingston, Jamaica, will be forwarded for expected ratification by Heads of Government when they meet for their regular annual summit in Guyana in July.

Pollard, a former consultant on international law projects for the UN and Director of the Caricom Legislative Drafting Facility prior to his CCJ appointment, may have to compete with other candidates of  the Latin America region.

Trinidad and Tobago's former attorney general, Karl Hudson-Phillips QC, was the first candidate of the Carib-bean/Latin America region to be elected as a judge of the ICC which he served for four years before opting to resign for personal reasons.

Ramdin, a former assistant secretary general of Caricom with responsibilities for Foreign and Community Relations, had served for three years as special adviser to ex-OAS Secretary General, Cesar Gaviria, before seeking the office he has now been holding since 2005.

The offices of both OAS incumbents-Secretary General, Jose Miguel Insulza, Chile's former foreign minister, and Ramdin are due for election at the organisation's General Assembly in June 2010.


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