NEW YORK, CMC – Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders, will address the launch of the United Nations Report of the Independent International Panel on Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations.
The event will take place on Tuesday at the UN headquarters and is being held during International Law Week, which is co-hosted by Antigua and Barbuda and Canada, with Australia, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands as co-sponsors.
The Panel’s Report is the first comprehensive legal study of arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations, the seizure of foreign nationals by a state to pressure another state. The practice violates international law and erodes trust between states. The Report sets out legal analysis and concrete recommendations to strengthen prevention, protection, and accountability.
Sir Ronald, who is also Antigua and Barbuda’s Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), will underscore his country’s early endorsement of the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations and the particular vulnerabilities of small states with limited consular networks.
He will emphasize that “the seizure of people to bend the will of states is not diplomacy; it is coercion in daylight”.
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