International Mechanism Submissions

This report addresses Trinidad and Tobago’s compliance with its human rights obligations with regard to the death penalty. In 2022, courts issued a minimum of five death sentences, with 43 people known to be on death row. Trinidad and Tobago is the only country in the Americas to maintain a mandatory death penalty for murder. Although the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has held that such mandatory death penalty would constitute arbitrary depravation of life, violating Articles 4(1) and 4(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights, Trinidad and Tobago has not complied with the Court’s order that the country should abstain from applying its “Offences Against the Person Act” and should amend the Act to comply with internal norms of human rights protection.