Raphael John-Lall

While Trinidad and To­ba­go’s elec­tion to a seat on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) will bring the coun­try pos­i­tive ex­po­sure, it may not nec­es­sar­i­ly lead to im­me­di­ate greater for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment (FDI) in­to the coun­try.

Win­ston Dook­er­an, a for­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor who is al­so a for­mer For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter shared this view with the Busi­ness Guardian.

He al­so shared a pa­per on T&T’s elec­tion to the UN­SC that he and Andy Knight, Pro­fes­sor of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­ber­ta, Cana­da au­thored re­cent­ly.

It was pub­lished in June in the Round­table, the Com­mon­wealth Jour­nal of In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs and Pol­i­cy Stud­ies in June and is en­ti­tled “The Art of the Long Game: Trinidad and To­ba­go and Caribbean State­craft at the Unit­ed Na­tions.”

In June, T&T was elect­ed as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber for the 2027-2028 term.

“The in­cen­tive for FDI de­pends more on the cred­it rat­ing of T&T and its en­ter­pris­es. The UN­SC is a glob­al po­lit­i­cal fo­rum where T&T’s po­si­tion is ar­tic­u­lat­ed in a geo-po­lit­i­cal con­text. It may bring ex­po­sure, but un­like­ly to di­rect­ly in­crease FDI,” Dook­er­an said in re­sponse to fol­low up ques­tions from the Busi­ness Guardian.

Re­fer­ring to the orig­i­nal pa­per, he ex­plained that small de­vel­op­ing coun­tries like T&T do not have eco­nom­ic or mil­i­tary pow­er.

“For small Caribbean states, in­flu­ence is rarely de­rived from mil­i­tary strength or eco­nom­ic dom­i­nance. It is earned through cred­i­bil­i­ty, con­sis­ten­cy and the abil­i­ty to build coali­tions with Latin Amer­i­can part­ners. Caribbean diplo­ma­cy has his­tor­i­cal­ly re­lied on these as­sets. Whether ad­vo­cat­ing for de­coloni­sa­tion, de­vel­op­ment, cli­mate re­silience or in­ter­na­tion­al law, Caribbean states have of­ten found in­flu­ence through per­sua­sion rather than co­er­cion.”

Mak­ing ref­er­ence to the pa­per, Dook­er­an al­so said in the days fol­low­ing T&T’s over­whelm­ing elec­tion to the UN­SCl, much at­ten­tion has been paid to the re­sult. Yet the more in­ter­est­ing sto­ry lies not in the 181 votes cast for the twin-is­land state at the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York in June, but in the years of diplo­ma­cy that made those votes pos­si­ble.

“Far from be­ing a sur­prise, T&T’s elec­tion is the lat­est chap­ter in a long Caribbean tra­di­tion of mul­ti­lat­er­al state­craft and the en­dur­ing in­flu­ence of small states in glob­al af­fairs. This is a tra­di­tion both of us have had the priv­i­lege to ob­serve from close quar­ters.”

He added that T&T’s elec­tion to the apex UN body is nei­ther un­prece­dent­ed nor ac­ci­den­tal. Forty-one years af­ter its first Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil term in 1985–1986, the coun­try is re­turn­ing to the horse­shoe ta­ble at the be­gin­ning of next year..

He fur­ther stat­ed that its elec­tion is the lat­est chap­ter in a broad­er Caribbean sto­ry.

Ja­maica has served four terms on the Coun­cil.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic has al­so held four terms, while Haiti has served three. Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, Saint Lu­cia and, more re­cent­ly, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines have like­wise demon­strat­ed that small Caribbean states can earn the con­fi­dence of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to the UN­SCl’s cen­tral task: the main­te­nance of in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

Quot­ing from the pa­per, Dook­er­an then ex­plained how T&T ac­com­plished this par­tic­u­lar feat.

“The an­swer lies in a lit­tle-un­der­stood fea­ture of mul­ti­lat­er­al diplo­ma­cy. Elec­tions to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil are not won through last-minute lob­by­ing cam­paigns. They are the cul­mi­na­tion of years of re­la­tion­ship-build­ing, reci­procity and co­op­er­a­tion with­in re­gion­al group­ings. In the case of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, these dy­nam­ics are par­tic­u­lar­ly ev­i­dent with­in the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Group (GRU­LAC), whose mem­bers have long re­lied on con­sul­ta­tion, co­op­er­a­tion, and in­for­mal un­der­stand­ings to man­age can­di­da­cies for se­nior UN po­si­tions.”

He not­ed that al­though no for­mal writ­ten ro­ta­tion prin­ci­ple ex­ists for UN­SCl elec­tions with­in GRU­LAC, a tra­di­tion of con­sul­ta­tion and ac­com­mo­da­tion has evolved over time and Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can states have gen­er­al­ly re­spect­ed each oth­er’s as­pi­ra­tions for rep­re­sen­ta­tion in key mul­ti­lat­er­al in­sti­tu­tions. The re­sult has been a diplo­mat­ic cul­ture built on trust, reci­procity and long-term en­gage­ment rather than short-term trans­ac­tion­al pol­i­tics.

He said this is diplo­ma­cy un­der­stood as state­craft: the strate­gic use of re­la­tion­ships, ideas and in­sti­tu­tions to ad­vance na­tion­al and re­gion­al in­ter­ests in a com­plex in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment.

Small states’ in­flu­ence

Dook­er­an gave the view that re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence demon­strates that small states do more than sim­ply oc­cu­py seats.

In the pa­per, he and Knight ar­gued that small states can shape de­bates.

“St Vin­cent and the Grenadines’ tenure on the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil il­lus­trat­ed what one of us has else­where de­scribed as a diplo­mat­ic ‘door kick­er’ - open­ing space for is­sues and per­spec­tives that might oth­er­wise be over­looked, in­clud­ing cli­mate se­cu­ri­ty. Small states may not pos­sess ve­toes, but they can in­flu­ence agen­das, frame dis­cus­sions and re­mind the Coun­cil of con­cerns that larg­er pow­ers some­times ne­glect.”

Quot­ing from the pa­per, he said, Caribbean lead­ers and diplo­mats have made the case that small states can punch above their weight in mul­ti­lat­er­al in­sti­tu­tions.

“The his­tor­i­cal record sug­gests they were right. Re­peat­ed elec­tions to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil demon­strate that in­flu­ence in world pol­i­tics is not de­ter­mined sole­ly by pop­u­la­tion size, eco­nom­ic strength, or mil­i­tary pow­er. Rather, it of­ten de­pends on cred­i­bil­i­ty, con­sis­ten­cy, coali­tion-build­ing and the abil­i­ty to cul­ti­vate trust over time.”

He point­ed out that the re­peat­ed suc­cess of Caribbean states at the Unit­ed Na­tions is not lim­it­ed to Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil elec­tions.

One ex­am­ple is in 2023 when T&T’s Am­bas­sador Den­nis Fran­cis was elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the 78th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, one of the most pres­ti­gious lead­er­ship po­si­tions in the mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem.

Dook­er­an said Fran­cis’ elec­tion re­flect­ed not on­ly his per­son­al diplo­mat­ic cre­den­tials but al­so years of pa­tient en­gage­ment with­in GRU­LAC, where sup­port for ma­jor can­di­da­cies is built through con­sul­ta­tion, reci­procity and long-term re­la­tion­ship-build­ing. Such out­comes are best un­der­stood not as iso­lat­ed vic­to­ries but as the fruits of sus­tained diplo­mat­ic in­vest­ment and strate­gic state­craft.

Glob­al cri­sis

Mak­ing ref­er­ence to the pa­per, Dook­er­an be­lieves that T&T as­sumes its seat in 2027 at a par­tic­u­lar­ly con­se­quen­tial mo­ment.

“The rules-based in­ter­na­tion­al or­der that emerged af­ter 1945 is un­der in­creas­ing strain, yet no sta­ble re­place­ment has emerged. Great-pow­er com­pe­ti­tion, geopo­lit­i­cal frag­men­ta­tion, cli­mate in­se­cu­ri­ty, tech­no­log­i­cal dis­rup­tion and de­clin­ing con­fi­dence in mul­ti­lat­er­al in­sti­tu­tions have cre­at­ed a pe­ri­od of pro­found tran­si­tion and un­cer­tain­ty.”

He said height­ened ten­sions sur­round­ing Cu­ba, Venezuela and Haiti, to­geth­er with grow­ing chal­lenges to prin­ci­ples of sov­er­eign­ty, non-in­ter­ven­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al law, and con­cerns about the ex­is­ten­tial threat of glob­al warm­ing to the re­gion, have placed re­newed pres­sure on the mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem.

“For coun­tries such as T&T, the chal­lenge will be to nav­i­gate these tur­bu­lent wa­ters while re­main­ing faith­ful to prin­ci­ples that have his­tor­i­cal­ly guid­ed Caribbean diplo­ma­cy. At the same time, the coun­try’s re­turn to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to broad­er dis­cus­sions about the fu­ture of mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and the re­form of in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions whose le­git­i­ma­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing called in­to ques­tion.”

Fi­nal­ly, Dook­er­an and Knight ar­gued that the larg­er ques­tion is whether T&T can help ar­tic­u­late a co­her­ent Caribbean voice on sov­er­eign­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, de­vel­op­ment, cli­mate re­silience and mul­ti­lat­er­al re­form dur­ing one of the most con­se­quen­tial pe­ri­ods of glob­al tran­si­tion since the found­ing of the Unit­ed Na­tions.

“The elec­tion of T&T to a two-year non-per­ma­nent seat on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is a re­minder that while small states may lack the hard pow­er of great pow­ers, they of­ten pos­sess some­thing equal­ly im­por­tant in mul­ti­lat­er­al diplo­ma­cy: cred­i­bil­i­ty, agili­ty and the ca­pac­i­ty to build con­sen­sus. The his­to­ry of Caribbean en­gage­ment at the Unit­ed Na­tions sug­gests that these qual­i­ties can trans­late in­to in­flu­ence far be­yond what ge­og­ra­phy, pop­u­la­tion, or mil­i­tary pow­er might sug­gest.”