Media Center

Press Advisory


OAS and CARICOM Promote Drug Treatment Courts in the Caribbean

  January 31, 2011

More than seventy judges and other representatives from the judiciary system in the Caribbean will participate in a high-level training conference for establishing and consolidating Drug Treatment Courts in the region. This conference will take place in Montego Bay, Jamaica, from February 2nd to the 5th, 2011.

The training session, titled, “Establishing and Consolidating Drug Treatment Courts in the Caribbean: a Team Effort,” is among the first activities organized under the umbrella of the recently launched Caribbean Drug Treatment Court (DTC) project, an initiative coordinated by the Organization of the American States (OAS), through the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), supported by CARICOM and funded by the Government of Canada.

The high-level conference will bring together judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, treatment providers, and probation officers from Jamaica, as well as Drug Treatment Court teams from Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago who will be trained by Canadian experts.

The opening ceremony is expected to bring together Dorothy Lightbourne, Jamaica’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General; Zaila McCalla ,Chief Justice of Jamaica; Earl Wright, Chairman of the National Council of Drug Abuse of Jamaica; James F.Mack, CICAD Executive Secretary; and Myrna Bernard, Officer in Charge of Human and Social Development at the CARICOM Secretariat.

For more information contact Antonio Lomba: [email protected], tel: +1 (202) 458-3130

WHAT: Opening Ceremony and Plenary: Establishing and Consolidating Drug Treatment Courts in the Caribbean

WHEN: Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

WHERE: The Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa

Reference: AVI-020/11