United Nations, New York (4th February 2025) – The Federation’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs Hon Garth Wilkin was elected on Monday, 3rd February 2025 to serve as a Vice Chair on the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Negotiations Committee to draft the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. His election is a result of the Permanent Mission of St. Kitts and Nevis’ new orientation to scale up visibility, leadership and representation across the United Nations System, in line with the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister’s geostrategic diplomacy to secure critical partnerships. Joining the Attorney General were H.E Dr. Mutryce Williams, Permanent Representative to the UN, Mrs. Liska Hutchinson Rhyner, Crown Counsel and Minister Counsellor Eustace Wallace.
In December 2024, the African Group, with the co-sponsorship of the Federation, successfully shepherded the passage of Resolution 79/235 entitled “promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations.” This resolution gave way to the establishment of an intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC-Tax) to draft a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation and two early protocols. This Member State-led process will run from 2025 to 2027, with the aim of developing a framework convention that leads to fully inclusive and more effective international tax cooperation.
During his statement at the Organizational Meeting, which saw the Bureau of the International Negotiation Committee elected, Hon Garth Wilkin emphasized that, “our meeting, at this dynamic and critical moment in human history, marked by novel geopolitics and geo economic realities, illustrates the necessity of investing in certainty, security and sustainability. Deepening international tax cooperation must contribute to Financing for Development, and the overall achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The Attorney General also reminded his colleagues that, “our Federation believes in trading our way to becoming a Sustainable Island State by 2040, and trust that this process, backed by consensus and outstretched hands can facilitate our way to this critical national development goal.” He also underscored the gravity of the issue by reminding that, “in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, we know fully well the dangers and ruin of unilateral action on socio-economic growth, and therefore congratulate the United Nations, and our development and diplomatic partners for leaning into this critical developmental issue – at all levels of analysis.”
H.E Dr. Mutryce Williams, the Federation’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and her team at the Permanent Mission, worked hard to secure representation on this critical body as this process decolonizes and democratizes the discourse on international tax cooperation – a significant industry for upward mobility in St. Kitts and Nevis.
