Trinidad and Tobago has been elected to serve as a vice-president of the 67th Session of the General Assembly (GA) of the United Nations for the period September 2012 to August 2013.

The decision was taken at a meeting last Saturday of Member States of the General Assembly, according to a press release from Permanent Representative to the UN, Rodney Charles.

Vice-presidents assist the president of the GA by chairing plenary meetings of various UN related bodies and are normally represented by the Permanent Representative of elected countries.

Trinidad and Tobago was one of three countries elected from the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States who were nominated by that regional group.

Candidates from each of the five regional groups in the UN are elected annually to ensure as wide as possible geographic representation of vice-presidents in the work of the GA.

Also elected on Saturday was Vuk Jeremic as president of the 67th General Assembly. Jeremic, who has held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia since May 15, 2007, is expected to resign this post to take up the presidency of the GA.

This is the first occasion in recent times that Trinidad and Tobago has been elected to serve as a vice-president of a UNGA.

It also comes on the heels of the election earlier this week of Commissioner Francis Charles as a member of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Other nationals elected to UN-related bodies over the past year are: Justice Anthony Lucky to the International Tribunal to the Law of the Sea; Justice Anthony Carmona to the International Criminal Court; and Kishan Kumarsingh as co-chair for the years 2013 and 2014 of the Ad Hoc Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.