54 “[M]ember states have not always been enthusiastic about implementing their obligations to further economic integration.” The Challenging Path to Caribbean Integration PATSY LEWIS T he Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is one of the world’s oldest and most ambi- tious regional integration schemes. Es- tablished more than four decades ago, it brings together 20 states and territories, most of them former or current British possessions, in an ar- rangement that covers trade and other forms of cooperation across a wide range of areas. Despite its ambitions—most notably, creating a Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME)—the bloc’s progress has been stymied by the economic woes of its members, including the aftershocks of the 2008 global financial crisis. Facing high levels of debt, poverty, and unem- ployment, as well as chronic fiscal deficits, CARI- COM member states have not always been enthu- siastic about implementing their obligations to further economic integration. Nor do they have the resources to fully support the bloc’s wide-rang- ing agenda for functional cooperation on health, education, and climate change, among other areas. Various underlying tensions have led to a slowing down of the integration process, particularly in setting up the CSME. CARICOM emerged in the wake of failed efforts to unite most of the British colonies in the Carib- bean as a precursor to independence. The West Indies Federation, launched in 1958, had disinte- grated by 1961—first Jamaica, then Trinidad, left to pursue independence separately. The federation was formally disbanded in 1962. Relations among the independent and depen- dent Caribbean states subsequently shifted in a direction that put an emphasis on trade. The first joint arrangement to result from this shift was the Caribbean Free Trade Area, founded in 1965, which gave way to CARICOM in 1973. The central aim of CARICOM was to set up a regional market by liberalizing trade among its members, but it also provided for cooperation in foreign affairs, and later, security. Other areas of functional coop- eration, which began with institutions developed both before and soon after independence, such as the University of the West Indies, the Carib- bean Development Bank, and common shipping services, grew exponentially to cover primary and secondary education, vocational qualifications, health, tourism, meteorology, disaster manage- ment, risk insurance, and climate change, just to name a few. In 2002, the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas, which launched CARICOM, was revised to create the CSME. The revised treaty called for removing the remaining barriers to trade, as well as lifting re- strictions on providing services, establishing busi- nesses, and allowing the free movement of capital. It also required the phased removal of barriers to the free movement of Caribbean nationals within the Community. The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was set up to settle disputes stemming from the CSME and to replace the British-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the final court of appeals for member states, though only four countries have recognized the latter authority. Today, most of the full members of CARICOM— Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Be- lize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts/Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago—engage in both economic integration pro- cesses and functional cooperation. The Bahamas and Montserrat, and the associate members—all of which are British overseas territories (Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands)—participate only in its functional arrangements. Haiti is still not integrated into CARICOM’s economic system; its membership was temporarily suspended after PATSY LEWIS is a visiting professor of international and public affairs and interim director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University. Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/119/814/54/400648/curh_119_814_054.pdf by guest on 02 December 2020