T&T elected to top UN post; Ambassador Charles to chair sessions at UN General Assembly

Rodney Charles, T&T's Permanent Representative to the UN

Trinidad and Tobago has been elected to the vice presidency of the United Nations, one of three countries from the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States to get such a high level position with the UN.

Member states formally elected Trinidad & Tobago to the prestigious UN post at a meeting of the UN General Assembly last Friday. T&T will serve as a vice-president of the 67th Session of the General Assembly for the period September 2012 to August 2013. 

Candidates from each of the five regional groups in the UN are elected annually to ensure as wide as possible geographic representation of vice-presidents in the work of the General Assembly.

Vice-presidents assist the president of the General Assembly by chairing plenary meetings of various UN-related bodies and are normally represented by the Permanent Representative of elected countries. 

That honour would fall to Rodney Charles, who is Trinidad & Tobago's Permanent Representative to the UN.

Other T&T high profile elections at the UN include:

• Francis Charles as a member of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shel
• Justice Anthony Lucky to the International Tribunal to the Law of the Sea
• Justice Anthony Carmona to the International Criminal Court
• Kishan Kumarsingh as co-chair for the years 2013 and 2014 of the Ad Hoc Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change