Industrial Court Judge Elizabeth Solomon, the wife of Attorney General Reginald Armour SC, has been appointed as the new Assistant Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
The Industrial Court Judge replaces Ambassador Donna Forde, who previously held the post since February 2022. The announcement was made via an internal memo yesterday. Caricom has not yet made a public statement regarding the appointment. The Attorney General confirmed that Judge Solomon has been appointed ASG with responsibility for Foreign and Community Relations.
Elizabeth Solomon started her working life as a journalist winning seven awards in print, radio, and television. Recruited to the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, Elizabeth set off on a trek that took her to some of the worst and most protracted conflicts in the world, a journey that honed her skills as a conflict prevention and peacebuilding expert. Elizabeth’s work in post-conflict countries has focused on supporting local efforts to build resilient democratic national institutions in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Somalia. Her work on human rights and development has been in Guyana, Brazil and India.
She spent several years in The Netherlands where she worked with academic institutions including The Institute for Social Studies in Den Haag and the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights in Utrecht. She has held positions at United Nations Headquarters in New York as a Senior Political Affairs Adviser and as a member of the Secretary-General’s Human Rights Up Front team. Solomon is a certified mediator and, as the Deputy Coordinator of the Good Offices in Cyprus, she was a member of the UN mediation team in the negotiations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Solomon left Cyprus to take up a post as the Peace and Development Adviser in Sierra Leone to support the transition from peacekeeping to the development mandate of the United Nations Country Team. After almost twenty years in peacebuilding, Solomon decided to return home to Trinidad and Tobago. She is a member of the Mediation Board and the Executive Director of the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights.
Judge Solonon also holds degrees in journalism and in law with post-graduate specializations in Human Rights, International Relations and Law, Development, and Social Justice.