(CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, in collaboration with the European Union held its second annual Treaty Law and Practice Seminar in Nassau, The Bahamas at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel. The Seminar was organised to heighten understanding, appreciation and knowledge of selected aspects of Treaty law and practice. It also served as a forum for encouraging wider participation in CARICOM Treaties and International processes.

The Seminar was formally opened on 19 July 2010 by the Attorney-General of The Bahamas, Senator the Honourable John Delaney, QC. Ms Tonya Bastian Galanis, Principal of the Eugene Dupuch Law School in The Bahamas, and Ms Cheryl Thompson-Barrow, the General Counsel of CARICOM, also spoke at the Opening Ceremony.

The four-day Seminar was facilitated by a team of highly experienced legal experts from the OGC along with other specialist presenters. Those included Judge Ramos, Vice President of the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); Mr Dante Negro, Director of the Department of International Law, in the General Secretariat of Legal Affairs of the Organisation of American States (OAS); Mr Akbar Khan, Director of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division, of the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Honourable Mr. Justice Winston Anderson, of the Caribbean Court of Justice will also present to the Seminar.

The more than one hundred participants included the Attorney-General of Dominica, lecturers and students from the regional Law Schools, officials from Attorney-General’s departments and Ministries of Foreign Affairs as well as private practitioners.

The Seminar ended on 22 July 2010, with the issue of Certificates to all participants.

The first of such seminar, sponsored by the United Nations was held in 2009 in St Vincent and the Grenadines and was deemed “highly successful.”