A Caricom primer

So, who/what is this “Caricom” about which everybody seems to know so much nowadays?

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) was inaugurated on July 4, 1973, at a signing ceremony in Chaguaramas, T&T. The Treaty of Chaguaramas (as revised in 2001) is a legally binding international agreement.

There are 15 full member states and 6 associate members. In 1973 there were just four members – Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and T&T. The effort to establish Caricom is widely credited to the convening of several meetings of Caribbean leaders in 1963 and initiated by late T&T PM, Dr Eric Williams.

This was only one year following the dissolution of the West Indies Federation that was launched in 1958 and included Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Saint Lucia, St Vincent, and T&T.

On December 15, 1965, the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) was launched in Antigua and Barbuda as largely a free trade grouping, but including issues associated with industrialisation and agricultural production.

CARIFTA eventually morphed into Caricom with a much wider scope of objectives and engagement and often overlapping agendas. The four main pillars of this new mandate include economic integration, foreign policy coordination, human and social development, and security cooperation.

Over the years, each pillar has confronted its fair share of difficulties – foreign policy coordination being among the more prominent, but not sole area of concern and occasional conflict.

There have been differences in policy positions related to everything from Cold War posturing in the early Caricom years – the 1970s through to the end of the 1980s – to issues associated with intra-regional trade and overall economic integration.

For these and other purposes, the principal organs of the Community pay close attention to the setting of policy – which is the role of the Conference of Heads of Government – and include the important and second highest body, the Community Council of Ministers, followed by the Councils for Finance and Planning (COFAP), Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR), Human and Social Development (COHSOD), Trade and Economic Development (COTED), the National Security and Law Enforcement (CONSLE).

For satisfaction of its extensive and diverse mandates, the Community also relies on close to 30 specialised and complementary autonomous and semi-autonomous institutions.

These include the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) headquartered in Port of Spain for the resolution of disputes related to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, but which currently serves as the court of final appeal for five member states.

The Court, in its Original Jurisdiction (resolution of Treaty disputes) has responsibility for all 12 participants in the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), including T&T, and has ruled in several such matters. So, yes, T&T is “in the CCJ.”

There is also the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) which played a leading role in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) which is currently quite active in Jamaica and works closely with our Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM), the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) located in T&T.

There are others that play leading roles in important areas such as climate change, telecommunications, renewable energy, regional standards and quality setting, tourism, meteorology, and regional security.

On issues of regional security there is the Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) which was established in 2006 and is headquartered in T&T. It is responsible for convening regional meetings through standing committees of police commissioners, military heads, immigration chiefs, customs heads and officials of intelligence and financial investigative agencies and units.

Recent promotion of the upcoming (finally) of a T&T online E/D travel card, for example, involves employment of a platform that has long been in use in several Caricom countries and is hosted by IMPACS.

T&T meanwhile has Caricom “portfolio responsibility” for regional security and energy.

My "CSME Certificate" issued in 2006

Among the key provisions of the Revised Treaty is provision for the “movement of skilled community nationals” (Article. 46). This became implementable in our instance through our Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act - amended in 2022 to include new categories.

I am the holder of “Certificate of Recognition of Caribbean Community Skills Qualification” No. 783 granted on February 23, 2006, which I have used for work permit-free employment in the region. My old friend, now Minister of Planning, Kennedy Swaratsingh, most likely received his Caricom skilled nationals certificate for work in Barbados long after I did.

There is much more to this basic introduction to Caricom, but I do not have a full newspaper to continue the story. At some point we will also need to explore the Caricom Secretariat.