Giv­en the re­cent clean sweep at the polls by the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) and the sup­port of the rul­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form in Par­lia­ment, To­ba­go au­ton­o­my is in­evitable. On Jan­u­ary 16th, 2026, the T&T News­day re­port­ed that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed, “My Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to en­act­ing leg­is­la­tion to en­trench the po­si­tion of To­ba­go as an equal, au­tonomous part of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go. In con­sul­ta­tion with the THA, the Gov­ern­ment shall draft an ef­fi­cient law to es­tab­lish To­ba­go as an equal part­ner, side by side, to­geth­er with Trinidad.”

De­spite the lack of po­lit­i­cal will from past ad­min­is­tra­tions to en­trench To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my in a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment, it is my le­gal opin­ion that To­ba­go has al­ways had the right to au­ton­o­my in in­ter­na­tion­al law.

For the pur­pos­es of this col­umn, I will equate the con­cept of au­ton­o­my with the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion as en­shrined in in­ter­na­tion­al law in­stru­ments.

In­ter­na­tion­al law

All peo­ple groups, in­clud­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go, have the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. Self-de­ter­mi­na­tion is the right of a peo­ple to make their own de­ci­sions and man­age their re­la­tion­ship with the in­ter­na­tion­al or­der and oth­er na­tions as they see fit.

The 1945 UN Char­ter states, in Ar­ti­cle 1(2), “To de­vel­op friend­ly re­la­tions among na­tions based on re­spect for the prin­ci­ple of equal rights and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of peo­ples, and to take oth­er ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures to strength­en uni­ver­sal peace.”

The In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights men­tions self-de­ter­mi­na­tion as a right that is held by “peo­ples” in Ar­ti­cle 1 as well.

Cus­tom­ary in­ter­na­tion­al law al­so guar­an­tees the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, as many Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly de­c­la­ra­tions enu­mer­ate the right. De­c­la­ra­tions made by the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly can be in­dica­tive of state prac­tice and give rise to cus­tom­ary in­ter­na­tion­al law or be con­sid­ered as ev­i­dence of the state of cus­tom­ary in­ter­na­tion­al law.

The right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al law is usu­al­ly in­ter­pret­ed in the con­text of de­coloni­sa­tion be­tween 1946 and 1984, as for­mer Eu­ro­pean colonies ob­tained their in­de­pen­dence. His­tor­i­cal­ly, the right was seen as a right of colonised peo­ples to ob­tain in­de­pen­dence from Eu­ro­pean pow­ers. There­fore, the ap­pli­ca­tion of the ju­rispru­dence of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion cas­es to To­ba­go is lim­it­ed by the post­colo­nial con­text.

In 2008, the na­tion of Koso­vo se­ced­ed and de­clared in­de­pen­dence from Ser­bia and the mat­ter was re­ferred to the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ). The ICJ found that Koso­vo’s de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence did not vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law. Par­ties to the case ar­gued that Koso­vo’s right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion al­lowed the cre­ation of an in­de­pen­dent state; how­ev­er, the ICJ de­clined to rule on the scope of the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of “re­me­di­al se­ces­sion” de­spite the is­sue be­ing ex­ten­sive­ly dis­cussed through­out the case.

In the sep­a­rate opin­ion of Jus­tice Cança­do Trindade, it is sug­gest­ed that the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion has evolved to ap­ply to new sit­u­a­tions be­yond the his­tor­i­cal con­text of de­coloni­sa­tion.

“Self-de­ter­mi­na­tion is an en­ti­tle­ment of peo­ples sub­ju­gat­ed in dis­tinct con­texts (not on­ly that of de­coloni­sa­tion), sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly sub­ject­ed to dis­crim­i­na­tion and hu­mil­i­a­tion, to tyran­ny and op­pres­sion. Such con­di­tion of in­hu­mane sub­ju­ga­tion goes against the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion and the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter al­to­geth­er. It is in breach of the Law of the Unit­ed Na­tions.”

Of course, the his­tor­i­cal con­text of Koso­vo’s in­de­pen­dence is one of war and op­pres­sion, and the ICJ rul­ing does not cre­ate a prece­dent al­low­ing for To­ba­go to se­cede from the uni­tary state of T&T; it sim­ply found that Koso­vo’s de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence was not in breach of in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Ap­pli­ca­tion to To­ba­go

The ex­tent of the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, as ap­plied to To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my, is not ful­ly clar­i­fied by caselaw and in­ter­na­tion­al treaties. The drafters of any con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment will have to con­tex­tu­alise the right in­to a pol­i­cy that works in the best in­ter­est of both T&T.

While the rights of the peo­ple of To­ba­go un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law do not in­clude a right to cre­ate a new state or new bor­ders, every ef­fort should be made to max­imise To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my with re­gard to mat­ters of gov­er­nance and pol­i­cy.

The right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion ought to in­clude all as­pects of gov­ern­ment, short of those that would prej­u­dice the pol­i­cy of the Ex­ec­u­tive of the uni­tary state of T&T.

Sched­ule 6 of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act specif­i­cal­ly ex­cludes To­bag­on­ian au­ton­o­my on is­sues of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign af­fairs, and this is ar­guably a vi­o­la­tion of the in­ter­na­tion­al law prin­ci­ple of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. A small but ded­i­cat­ed squadron of Coast Guard ves­sels man­aged by the THA may help with man­ag­ing To­ba­go bor­der se­cu­ri­ty pri­or­i­ties and de­ter drug traf­fick­ing.

There will be a need for any con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to give the Prime Min­is­ter ve­to pow­er over crit­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty and pol­i­cy de­ci­sions that af­fect the uni­tary state of T&T. Re­gard­less of the con­tro­ver­sy over the US radar in To­ba­go, T&T’s sup­port of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s poli­cies has re­sult­ed in more favourable treat­ment than oth­er na­tions in re­cent times.

As a lawyer, I am ea­ger to see how To­ba­go au­ton­o­my is de­fined by the drafters of the amend­ed Con­sti­tu­tion.