April 2009


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OAS Assistant Secretary General at UWI colloquium

Two days before the Fifth Summit of the Americas, Assistant Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Albert Ramdin, spoke on ‘The Western Hemisphere: Beyond the Summit of the Americas’ at an international colloquium organised by The University of the West Indies (UWI) Institute of International Relations (IIR).

The colloquium was organised in collaboration with the Institut québécois des hautes études internationales (Université Laval) and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (Waterloo, Canada).

Ramdin’s presentation was one of three sessions in the three-day colloquium. The formal opening included presentations by Professor Norman Girvan (Professorial Research Fellow, IIR) and Ms Alexandra Bugailiskis (Assistant Deputy Minister, Latin America & the Caribbean & Summit Sherpa, Canada) on the place of the Caribbean in our turbulent world and the importance of the 5th Summit of the Americas.

The closing session was a roundtable discussion among representatives from selective think tanks over the Americas on the state of inter‐American relations. Participants included Carlo Dade (FOCAL), Francisco Rojas (FLACSO), Cristina Equizabal (LACC), Andres Serbin (CRIES), Paulo Sotero (WWC) & Tim Shaw (IIR). Several books were launched: The Summitry of Small States: Towards the “Caribbean Summit” (CIGI); Diplomacies of Small States: Between vulnerability & resilience (Palgrave Macmillan); and Americas Diplomatist Magazine.