The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), is an organization of Caribbean nations and dependencies. Caricom's main purposes are to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy. Its major activities involve coordinating economic policies and development planning; it also devises and institutes special projects for the less-developed countries within its jurisdiction. It also operates as a regional common market for many of its members (Caricom Single Market). It also operates the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which serves as the final court of appeal for many Caricom members and also handles regional trade disputes.

Overview

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has become unofficially multilingual in practice with the addition of Dutch-speaking Suriname on July 4, 1995 and Haiti, where French and Haitian Creole are spoken, on July 2, 2002.

In 2001, the heads of government signed a Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas thus clearing the way for the transformation of the Common Market aspect of CARICOM. Part of the revised treaty includes the establishment and implementation of the Caribbean Court of Justice.

History

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), originally the Caribbean Community and Common Market, was established by the Treaty of Chaguaramas^[1] which came into effect on August 1, 1973. The first four signatories were Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

CARICOM replaced the 1965?1972 Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), which had been organized to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean following the dissolution of the West Indies Federation which lasted from January 3, 1958 to May 31, 1962.

A Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas^[2] establishing the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was signed by the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community on July 5, 2001 at their Twenty-Second Meeting of the Conference in Nassau, The Bahamas.

Membership

Currently CARICOM has 15 full members:

• (4 July 1974)
• (4 July 1983) (not part of customs union)
• (1 August 1973)
• (1 May 1974)
• (1 May 1974)
• (1 May 1974)
• (1 August 1973)
• (provisional membership on 4 July 1998, full membership on 2 July 2002)
• (1 August 1973)
• (a territory of the United Kingdom) (1 May 1974)
• (26 July 1974 as Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla)
• (1 May 1974)
• (1 May 1974)
• (4 July 1995)
• (1 August 1973)

There are five associate members:

• (July 1999)
• (2 July 2003)
• (July 1991)
• (16 May 2002)
• (July 1991)

There are seven observers:

• (U.S.)

From March 2004, Haiti's participation in CARICOM was suspended by its interim Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue in response to the visit of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (the ousted President) to Jamaica.^[3] Haiti's membership had been effectively suspended though since February 29, 2004 as CARICOM refused to recognize the new interim government. In early June 2006, Haiti was readmitted as a full member of the CARICOM, and Haitian President René Préval gave the opening address at the organization's Council of Ministers meeting in July.

In July 1999, Anguilla once again became involved with CARICOM when it gained associate membership. Prior to this, Anguilla had briefly been a part of CARICOM (1974-1980) as a constituent of the full member state of Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla.

In 2005 the Foreign Minister of the Dominican Republic had proposed seeking to obtain full membership status in CARICOM for his country for the second time. However, due to the sheer size of the Dominican Republic's economy and population size in comparison with the current CARICOM states (with the sole exception of Haiti, similar to the Dominican Republic in terms of population, and therefore being CARICOM's largest member in this regard) and coupled with the Dominican Republic's checkered history of foreign policy solidarity with the CARICOM states it is unclear whether the CARICOM states will unanimously vote to admit the Dominican Republic as a full member into the organization. It has been proposed that CARICOM may deepen ties with the Dominican Republic through the auspice of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) instead, which is an organisation that stops just short of the proposed political integration which will underpin CARICOM at a later date. Currently, the Dominican Republic also has a free trade agreement (from 2001) with CARICOM and also cooperates with CARICOM (since 1992) under the umbrella organization, Cariforum, in economic negotiations with the EU.^[4] The Dominican Republic originally became an Observer of CARICOM in 1982 and in 1991 it had presented CARICOM with a request for full membership.^[5]

Also in 2005, the Netherlands Antilles made an official request for the status of associate membership.^[6] It is not known how the future dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles will affect the current observer status or the requested associate membership status of the islands, such as Sint Maarten, in the future though Curaçao has announced http://www.nationnews.com/story/331831299788307.php, http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000032/003215.htm it wants to continue deepening ties with the CARICOM bloc.

In 2007, the U.S. Virgin Islands government announced it would begin seeking ties with CARICOM.^[7] It is not clear what membership status the USVI would obtain should they join CARICOM. It is possible the USVI would obtain observer status, considering fellow U.S. Caribbean territory Puerto Rico's current observer status.

See also: Trade bloc

Structure

After the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, CARICOM reorganised itself into a state like Government structure made up of the following branches:

The Executive

Comprising of a rotating prime ministerial Chairmanship of CARICOM (Head of CARICOM), the CARICOM Secretary General (Chief Executive) and the CARICOM Headquarters secretariat (Chief Administrative Organ). There is also a quasi Cabinet of individual Heads of Government who are given specific responsibility or portfolios for overall regional development and integration.^[11] The term of office of the Secretary-General is 5 years, which may be renewed.

The Legislative

The Community Council: The Council consists of Ministers responsible for Community Affairs and any other Minister designated by the Member States in their absolute discretion. It is one of the principal organs (the other being the Conference of the Heads of Government) and is supported by four other organs and three bodies.

Supporting Organs

• The Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP)
• The Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED)
• The Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR)
• The Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD)

Supporting Bodies

• The Legal Affairs Committee: provides legal advice to the organs and bodies of the Community (related: CARICOMLaw)
• The Budget Committee: examines the draft budget and work programme of the Secretariat and submits recommendations to the Community Council; and,
• The Committee of Central Bank Governors: provides recommendations to the COFAP on monetary and financial matters

The Judiciary

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) will act as the original jurisdiction for settlement of disputes on the functioning of the Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME), as well as serving as an appellate court of last resort for member states which have severed their country's ties with the Privy Council in London, United Kingdom. The CCJ is based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Many member states however, continue to utilize the Privy Council as their final appellate court and three member states do not use the CCJ for either its original jurisdiction or its appellate jurisdiction because they have either not signed the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (the Bahamas and Haiti) or are awaiting instruments of entrustment in order to ratify the Revised Treaty (Montserrat).

Caribbean Community organs and bodies

Structures that comprise the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

• CARICOM Heads of Government - Consisting of the various heads of Government from each member state

• Standing Committee of Ministers - Ministerial responsibilities for specific areas, for example the Standing Committee of Ministers responsible for Health will consist of Ministers of Health from each member state

Secretariat

• Secretariat of the Caribbean Community
• Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community

The Secretariat is located in Georgetown, Guyana.