LIMA, PERU (17 June 2025) – On Monday, June 16, 2025, Attorney General and Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs for Saint Kitts and Nevis, Senator the Honourable Garth Wilkin, announced that Saint Kitts and Nevis delivered a strong call for regional collaboration and institutional resilience in the face of organized crime at the prestigious EL PAcCTO 2.0 Annual Meeting being held in Lima, Peru from June 16–19, 2025.
EL PAcCTO 2.0 (Europe Latin America Programme of Assistance against Transnational Organised Crime) is the second phase (2023–2027) of a major cooperation programme between the European Union, Latin America, and now the Caribbean, focused on combating transnational organized crime.
Representing the Federation at one of the most critical justice and security gatherings in the Latin America–Caribbean–European Union dialogue calendar, Attorney General Wilkin played two pivotal roles on the opening day of the high-level segment of the conference.
In the morning plenary, the Attorney General moderated High-Level Dialogue 1, titled ‘Challenges Posed by the New Modalities of Organized Crime.’ The panel featured a distinguished lineup, including Spain’s Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Colombia’s Vice Minister of Defense Luis Edmundo Suárez, Justice Vivian Georgis Taylor-Alexander of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, and Chile’s Attorney General Ángel Valencia.
In his opening remarks, Attorney General Wilkin underscored the polycriminal and technologically agile nature of modern criminal networks, which now traffic not only drugs and weapons but also digital identities, illegal gold, and influence. “Our purpose this week,” he stated, “is to catalogue the threat and chart a path toward bold, enduring, and collaborative solutions between our regions.”
He emphasized that the Caribbean must no longer be seen as peripheral, but central to the fight against organized crime, given its role as a transshipment hub and a region increasingly affected by arms flows, digital exploitation, and institutional infiltration.
Later in the day, Attorney General Wilkin stepped into the spotlight again during High-Level Dialogue 3, delivering the Keynote Address—titled ‘Rule of Law in Justice and Security’s Response to Organized Crime’—which was a powerful affirmation of Saint Kitts and Nevis’ justice reform strategy and a rallying cry for regional interoperability. He warned that organized crime in the Caribbean is no longer episodic but structural, noting its destabilizing impact on small states.
But the Attorney General was equally emphatic on the need for regional and bi-regional solidarity. “If our response is to match [organized crime’s] agility,” he stated, “…we need more than strong institutions—we need strong regional interoperability…a transnational rule of law that respects legal sovereignty but functions through legal solidarity.”
He cited Saint Kitts and Nevis’ active participation in CARICOM IMPACS and the OECS’s judicial modernization work, while reaffirming the importance of platforms like EL PAcCTO 2.0 and the CCJ-led Needham’s Point Declaration as frameworks for coordinated action.
In closing, Wilkin urged delegates to move from rhetoric to reality. “Let us not settle for managing the crisis,” he said. “Let us use this moment to build justice systems that are strong, responsive, fair, and future-ready… and deliver justice that meets this moment.”
The EL PAcCTO 2.0 Annual Meeting continues through June 19, bringing together senior justice, security, and political leaders from Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Topics on the agenda include digital justice tools, cross-border intelligence sharing, legal responses to environmental crime, and strengthening youth and gender-sensitive justice frameworks.
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