Former Director-General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Ambassador Henry S Gill who played a vital role in Cariforum states negotiations with the European Union for the EPA died on Thursday.
A press release from the Caricom Secretariat said Gill succumbed in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago following a long period of illness.
“As the CRNM’s Senior Director, the late Ambassador Gill playeda pivotal role with respect to the regional strategy pursued by the Caribbean Forum of African, Carib-bean and Pacific States (Cariforum) in its negotiations with the European Union (EU) for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA),” the release said.
“The Caribbean has lost a key architect of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA,” Director-General of the Cariforum Directorate in the Caribbean Community Secretariat, Ivan Ogando Lora said, upon learning of Gill’s passing. “It is fair to say that the CARIFORUM-EU EPA will loom large with respect to the late Ambassador Gill’s legacy,” he added.
Ogando oversees the EPA Implementation Unit located in the Cariforum Directorate. This Unit was established to assist Cariforum states to implement the provisions of the EPA, in the wake of negotiations that culminated in the signing of the agreement by 14 Cariforum states in October 2008 and by the 15th Cariforum state, Haiti, in December 2009.
According to Ogando, the late ambassador was instrumental and adept in leading the EPA negotiations, arguably amongst the most technically complex of the trade negotiations that the region has engaged in. “He worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring the EPA to fruition on schedule, bringing to bear not just his technical acumen but unmatched leadership and diplomacy skills honed over many years, and which the next generation of trade policy practitioners who worked with him benefited from immensely,” Ogando said.
The Caricom Secretariat said there has been an outpouring of grief from friends and colleagues from within the region and farther afield, following Gill’s passing.
Gill came to the then CRNM (now referred to as the Office of Trade Negotiations of the Caricom Secretariat) in 1999, following a long and distinguished career initially in academia and then as an international relations/trade expert, the release said. The Trinidadian national resigned from the senior post at the CRNM with effect from June 30, 2009.
Prior to assuming the post of Director-General on July 4, 2008, he served with distinction as CRNM’s Senior Director for seven years with overarching responsibility for the technical work of the organisation and leadership of the team of technical experts and trade specialists operating from Brussels, Geneva, Kingston, Bridgetown and other Caribbean locations.
The 15 signatory Cariforum states to the EPA are the independent Caricom member states and the Dominican Republic.
