Managing Mature Regionalism

Copyright 2012 The Integrationist.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Political Leadership And Caribbean Integration1

Vaughan A. Lewis

Cuba And Caricom: 1990-2007

Professor Neville Duncan

Humanising Physical Development: A Human Settlement Approach To Achieving Community Viability In The Caribbean1

Ivan Laughlin

Oil Windfall Gains In Trinidad And Tobago: How Should The Government Respond?

Dr. Philomen Harrison1

Interrelationship Between Community And National Competition Rules

The Hon. Mr. Justice Duke E.E. Pollard

Labour Markets And Human Resources Development In The Caribbean

Andrew Downes

Redefining Subregional Security In The Eastern Caribbean: The Grenada Revolution And All That1

Vaughan A. Lewis

Opportunities And Challenges For Expanding Trade In Health Services In The English-Speaking Caribbean1

Logan Brenzel

Politics, Nation And Postcolony: Caribbean Inflections

Anthony Bogues

The Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Programme: The Experience Of Barbados, Trinidad And Tobago And The Oecs1

Andrew S. Downes, Phd

Thoughts On Private-Sector Growth In Caricom1

Marshall Hall

Towards Developing A Model Of Governance For Economic Union In The Oecs: A Case Study Of The European Union1

Civil Society Organisations’ Potential To Contribute To Democratic Elections

Carl Dundas

Before Caricom: Challenging Imperial Lines Of Trade In The Caribbean Since The 15Th Century

Professor Verene Shepherd

Brain Drain, Brain Circulation, Remittances And Development: Prospects For The Caribbean

Laura Ritchie Dawson

INTRODUCTION

From its inception, The Integrationist publications have sought to invite regional scholarship, rigorous research and to draw upon the inestimable depth of writings of the region’s intellectuals, academics and technical experts on various development perspectives, policy options, analyses and recommendations relative to the Caribbean Community’s integration process and its overall development agenda. In so doing, The Integrationist offers a rich resource and reference point for Caribbean leaders, policymakers and, ultimately, the regional citizenry on integration, on unique problems faced by the region, on current realities and solutions or options from which the region may choose on its path to development.

The Caribbean Community: Beyond Survival, edited by Prof. Kenneth Hall, Understanding International Trade: A CARICOM Perspective by Ambassador Edwin Laurent and The Race for Fisheries and Hydrocarbons in the Caribbean Basin: The Barbados-Trinidad and Tobago Dispute, Regional Delimitation Implications, by Dr. Clifford Griffin, are but a few examples of the substantive publications constituting the project’s contribution, response and proposed solutions to the fundamental issues confronting the region. Each publication focuses either on a single topic or on a significant theme of specific interest and concern to the regional integration movement, as for example, the 2008 published work on Functional Cooperation.

This issue in the series continues this well-established tradition. The articles are written by persons who are passionate about the Community’s success at what a Technical Working Group on Governance (appointed in 2005 by the CARICOM Heads of Government) has described as managing mature regionalism. The focus is on such diverse areas as the contribution of the CXC to regional integration; human settlements and their relationship to community viability; a role for the Private Sector in the development of the Caribbean Community; human resource development in the region; and the integrative role of the Fisheries Sector.

The reader is asked however, not to view these articles simply as individual outpourings in support of a more mature regionalism. Instead, the articles, as with the others in The Integrationist series, should be measured within the context of the social, economic and political developments within the region today and the dominant forces that are impacting and at times impeding progress towards regional integration. Among these latter are the many constraints such as the worsening state of outward migration which results in the considerable depletion of the stock of regional talent and skills available to the region, notwithstanding the enriching effects which accrue through the Diaspora’s outreach. This issue of The Integrationist takes the opportunity to draw specific attention to this particular phenomenon.

No clearer acknowledgement of the currency of these constraints and the need to remove them can be found than in the statements made by our Heads of Government at their July 2008 Summit inAntigua and Barbuda, when, the incoming Chairman and Conference Host, the Hon. Baldwin Spencer made a forceful and impassioned plea for the revitalization of the Caribbean Community and for deepening and strengthening the integration process. In so doing, he readily acknowledged the many constraints to integration and their impact on the region at large. Among those cited were the state of West Indies cricket; the rise in energy costs and the imperative to search for alternative energy solutions; the devastation presaged by climate change; rising food prices and the need for food security; insecurities within the regional tourism process; the impact of drug use and abuse; and the ravages of obesity, hypertension, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. In respect of all of the foregoing there was a call for re-energizing the integration process through a commitment to action.

It must be readily acknowledged that there are many of our citizens who still harbour concerns about the state of the regional integration process today, the advent of the CSME notwithstanding. This is to be expected during the current global revolutionary process that is taking citizens out of the comfort zone of their traditional and historical patterns of economic and socio-political development—a comfort zone that is being seriously eroded on an almost daily basis by a globalization process that demands both seemingly radical change and urgent remedial action.

It is in the context of this development that Heads of Government have been meeting over the years and more recently, with unprecedented but welcome regularity and urgency to discuss such crisis-oriented issues as Climate Change, Security, Energy and Rising Food Prices. At their Special Meeting in Guyana in December 2007, to discuss Poverty and the Rising Cost of Living in Member States with a view to finding solutions, at both the national and regional levels, to the critical issue of poverty and the rising cost of living, for example, they took note of the several factors which were negatively impacting the issue, many of which were outside of the control of the Community. The factors include: persistently high and rising prices in the global economy . . . (that) are in turn fuelled by unprecedented high and rising oil prices; climate change which . . . disrupted food supplies from the main producer countries that have suffered droughts and other natural disasters; increasing demand by some emerging economies as a result of massive urbanization and industrialization; the shift in agricultural production from food to bio-fuels; increased cost in ocean freight resulting from high oil prices; and more recently, the sharp depreciation of the US dollar.

Just a few months earlier, in September 2007, CARICOM Heads of Government met in a Special Session to address the issue of Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs)which was accounting for, among other detrimental factors, over 50% of the deaths in the poorer countries which carried a double burden of disease. This response by the Heads underscores a number of important considerations that are relevant to the regional integration process. In the Nassau Declaration of 2001, there was the clear recognition that the health of the region was the wealth of the region and that both national and regional policies should be guided by this principle. It was in fact the formalization of an ongoing process within the Community’s health sectors. The September Summit, however, in the face of rapidly changing global developments and their regional repercussions, significantly raised the level of focus and attention which should be placed on the imperative to stop the spread of NCDs. The demand for radical solutions and urgent remedial action went beyond the traditional call for increased national attention and was virtually elevated to the level of a collective regional responsibility and within this was the significant and welcome development which recognized and fully accepted that the integration process, in respect of addressing the issue of NCDs as with other issues of a regional nature, would be even better served when undertaken within the context of regional public/private partnership programmes.

These Special Summits are not therefore ad hoc responses to emerging crises. They are made necessary by the rapid changes that are taking place within the international environment and which, fuelled by the swiftness of information and technology changes and their effects on global action and interaction, have created the imperative for equally swift and timely responses. The challenges which all this poses are:

• how to implement the various courses of action that are demanded in response to the impact of these quite revolutionary changes; and

• how to effect not only swift remedial responses but also how to implement courses of action that will serve to strengthen and advance the regional integration process. The conclusions of the 13th Special Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government, which was held in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2008, have provided us with some answers.

Special attention was focused on a number of significant issues requiring regional responses, including the issue of Governance particularly with respect to decision making; operationalization of the CARICOM Development Fund; the issue of Crime and Security, and how to build on the legacy of Cricket World Cup from the perspective of enhancing Regional Security; regional coordination with respect to the issue of Drug Trafficking; the issue of Deportees and its impact on national regional development; and review and rationalization of Regional Institutions and Organizations. The significance of all this, and it bears repetition, is that even as the regional integration process is being buffeted by the external winds of change, efforts are being concentrated on strengthening the process to withstand these pressures. Making the Community stronger and more viable, improving its structures at all levels and creating an environment for not only citizens’ participation but also their better appreciation of the imperative for regional integration, represent the necessary actions for re-energising the integration process.

In A Time for Action, the West Indian Commission dilated considerably on the various practical and possible measures to be undertaken that would serve to create such a Community. The Commission’s analysis and recommendations were based not only on reasoned intellectual hypotheses but also on very sound considerations, as reflected in the voices of the people of the Community whose views, opinions, hopes and aspirations were freely expressed to the Commission in their quest for real and sustainable answers.

Reference was made earlier to the Diaspora’s outreach as a significant contributor to a more cohesive regionalism and the role which the Caribbean Diaspora can play in deepening and strengthening the process of regional integration. It was in June 2007 that a major milestone was recorded in the history of the Caribbean Community in its measured progress towards a state of genuine integration. There was held, in various cities of the United States, a coming together of CARICOM nationals and descendants of nationals in a collective effort at making a definitive and sustainable contribution towards the integration of the Caribbean Community. Broadly described as the Conference on the Caribbean—A 20/20 Vision, the region’s Diaspora produced, through a consultative process lasting several months, a series of thought-provoking ideas and recommendations that integrally involved them through various contributions other than—or in addition to—the system of remittances which continues to make such a significant contribution to the region’s several poverty amelioration programmes.

A CIDA study, commissioned in 2007, has recorded that the Caribbean Community has the highest per capita rate of emigration in the world. Many of these migrants are well educated. Indeed, the study notes that an average 73% of college/university graduates have left the region since the sixties and that these figures are even higher in respect of Guyana, Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. These persons comprise the Diaspora in addition to the hordes of skilled and semi-skilled workers who also have left the region in search of a better life elsewhere. No developing country or region can sustain such losses and still maintain a strong foundation for its development. More to the point, no developing country or region can successfully meet the challenges of development unless it seriously addresses the relationship of its Diaspora to its development process.

Much has been said about the value of remittances from the Diaspora to a country’s development. This is not the place to dilate on the arguments for and against this, other than to concede that these cross-border economic transfers contribute significantly to the survival and welfare of the recipients in their home states. The jury is still out however, on whether remittances make any significant contribution to the national/regional development process, particularly when viewed in the context of the social and economic impact of the ‘brain drain’ on that very development process. Dr. Laura Ritchie Dawson, in her penetrating analysis of this issue, entitled Brain Drain, Brain Circulation, Remittances and Development: Prospects for the Caribbean, notes that, the emigration experiences of China, India, Mexico, Armenia, the Philippines and elsewhere tell a compelling story of how migration can contribute to development for some countries, but produce little in the way of sustainable development for others.

In treating the Diaspora as an essential element of development—and this was the fundamental premise of the Conference on the Caribbean—A 20/20 Vision—one needs to go much beyond the value of remittances and recognize the Diaspora as a community itself with a clear and positive umbilical linkage to the Caribbean Community. Dr. Kenrick Hunte, in his article entitled: US/CARICOM: Building Partnerships and Expanding ‘Outreach’, calls for a more systematic involvement of the Diaspora and recommends the creation of a Caribbean Diaspora Foundation that would be responsible for implementing a number of agreed upon recommendations involving skills and talents of the Diaspora.

Dr. Hunte may be correct in calling for a more centralized and focused approach to the deepening of the existing Community/Diaspora relationship. For decades, individual Community States have been implementing quite successful programmes with their Diaspora that go beyond the issue of remittances. There is, therefore, some good foundation in Hunte’s call to regionalize the effort. It is a call, in fact, which is shared by the Community, as reflected in the recommendations which the CARICOM Secretariat put forward for consideration at the 11th COFCOR Meeting in April 2008. In an Agenda item called Outreach of the Caribbean Diaspora, the CARICOM Secretariat set out a number of recommendations, the more significant of which were as follows:

• Examination of national Diaspora outreach programmes already being implemented by CARICOM Member States with a view to deriving best practices that could inform a CARICOM Diaspora Outreach Programme. This would enhance and expand, rather than compete with national programmes;

• Designation of a Head of Government within the Quasi Cabinet of the Conference of Heads of Government with dedicated responsibility for Diaspora Affairs. This would signal the seriousness and visible political commitment of CARICOM’s outreach to its Diaspora;

• Encouraging the disparate Caribbean national diasporic communities to integrate amongst themselves and relate to CARICOM in a structured manner, through the establishment of criteria for accreditation to regional consultative bodies such as the proposed Council for Civil Society;

• As an initial step, focus should be on one or two Diaspora categories, such as youth and/or students. This will allow for integration and contact with existing programmes, such as the CARICOM Youth Ambassadors Programme.

• The inaugural programme launched should have some direct relationship to the implementation of the CSME; and

• Given the outreach to the Caribbean Diaspora by the Conferences on the Caribbean in the United States in 2007 and 2008, there is need for similar Conferences to be held in Canada and in Europe.

In the continuing thrust for a cohesive Caribbean Community, no area has remained unexplored. In addressing the various challenges and in taking advantage of the many opportunities therein created, the Leaders of the Caribbean Community have recognized as well the need to build partnerships in order to do so effectively—partnerships which include: transferred sovereignty from national governments in addressing some issues; arrangements with the region’s private sector and private-sector organizations; the Community’s Diaspora; the region’s institutions of higher learning; and the informed inputs of such Community institutions as the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians and the NGO’s that can give life and meaning to the Charter of Civil Society.

The Integrationist, as its track record clearly demonstrates, remains a leader in communicating the virtues, values and, indeed, the absolute imperative for deepening the regional integration process as a contributing factor to the amelioration of our citizen’s lives and livelihood. It is a lead which it is expected that other communications agencies will follow by integrating within their strategic objectives a commitment as well to regional integration. In A Time for Action, the people were clear about what they wanted: to be informed, to be educated and to be made to feel a part of a process that is so important to their daily existence. This surely must be the real challenge to the success of the Community’s integrated development.

REFERENCES

Communiqué Issued at the Conclusion of the 29th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Bolans Village, Antigua and Barbuda. 1-4 July 2008. http://www.caricom.org.

Communiqué Issued at the Conclusion of the Regional Summit of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. 15 September 2007. http://www.caricom.org.

Communique issued at the Eleventh meeting of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFOR). Bolans Village, Antigua and Barbuda. 7-9 May 2008. http://www.caricom.org.

Conference on the Caribbean: A 20\20 Vision. Washington DC 19-21June 2007.

Dawson, Laura R. Brain Drain, Brain Circulation, Remittances and Development: Prospects for the Caribbean. Caribbean Paper #2. June 2007.

Hunte, C. Kenrick, PH.D. US-Caribbean relations: Building Partnerships and Expanding Outreach. Paper submitted for a forthcoming publication of the Integrationist. (undated).

Lewis, Vaughan A. Managing Mature Regionalism: Regional Governance in the Caribbean Community. Report of the Technical Working Group on Governance. October 2006.

Nassau Declaration on Health 2001: The Health of the Region is the Wealth of the Region. Nassau, The Bahamas. 6 July 2001. http://www.caricom.org.

Statement by CARICOM Heads of Government on Poverty and the Rising Cost of Living in Member States, at the Twelfth Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community. Georgetown, Guyana. 7 December 2007. http://www.caricom.org.

Statement issued by the Conference of Heads of Government of Caribbean Community at its Thirteenth Special Meeting. Trinidad and Tobago. 4-5 April, 2008. http://www.caricom.org.

The West Indian Commission. 1992 Time for Action: Report of the West Indian Commission. Barbados: Black Rock.

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

AND CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION¹

by

Vaughan A. Lewis

In the late 1980s into the ‘90s, an extensive consultation, including the holding of a Consultative Assembly of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders was held on what was referred to as the OECS Unity Initiative towards political integration of a number of Eastern Caribbean states. The Report of the Assembly, chaired by the late Justice Telford Georges and including Heads of Government themselves, was, however, never submitted to all the participating governments’ parliaments for further consideration, as had been intended. The Initiative died an unnoticed death.

After an extensive set of consultations, between 1989 and 1992 on the issue of a new form of governance for an enhanced CARICOM integration system, the report and recommendations proposed by Sir Shridath Ramphal’s committee in a document, Time for Action, were in large part not accepted by Heads of Government. Instead they chose an alternative set of recommendations proposed by themselves.

Then, in 2007, having received a further report and recommendations of a Technical Working Group on Governance, appointed by themselves two years earlier, on the same issue of enhanced institutional and governance arrangements to match the implementation of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, the Heads of Government rejected the Group’s recommendations², and instead, earlier this year, proposed a new set of terms of reference for a reconsideration of the same theme.

Why do these situations of Heads of Governments’ highly public announcements of initiatives then rejection of recommendations, or hesitations in pursuit of decisions relating to paths towards enhancement of the integration process, occur so often? In the case of the ignoring of the OECS Unity recommendations it came to be felt that the essentially Windward Island Governments, recognized that the mode of implementation of the new integrated political structure would require a series of referenda, a challenge that seemed to be insurmountable. They did not believe that they could successfully proceed.

In the case of the recommendations on governance of the CARICOM integration system, an expression of the view by at least one government—that their implementation would impinge on the sovereignty of Member States—seems to have prevailed as an appropriate reason for non-acceptance. And indeed, there now appears to be a suggestion in some quarters, that the transition to a single economy would have the same effect and could therefore be unacceptable—a suggestion foreshadowed by some countries’ rejection of the establishment of a Caribbean Court of Justice to which they had previously agreed.

It will be recalled, though it is sometimes forgotten, that by the second half of the 1970s and into the first half of the 1980s, the CARICOM economic integration system virtually stalled, partly as a consequence of the serious recession that affected some of the Member States, a consequent substantial reduction in intra-regional trade and breakdown of the regional payments system (the CMCF), disagreements over approaches to further forms of integration and ideological issues influencing regional countries’ domestic and foreign policies.

An increasing awareness by governments of the potential effects of a changing international economic system led, by 1989, to the Grande Anse Declaration, indicating that the CARICOM leadership had become aware of the need to respond to external pressures on the integration process, in a more institutionally cohesive manner. Recall that the Grande Anse Declaration indeed came three years after the 1986 decision of the European Community that it would be transitioning to a single economy with requisite changes both in its own regional institutional arrangements and in the relationship between the EC and CARICOM. But the implementation of the CSME has certainly been more prolonged than anticipated. The single economy aspect will require a longer period towards its implementation and the consequent intended governance arrangement is still in gestation, as far as its intended form is concerned.

In the meantime, the European Communities have been transformed into a European Union, substantial institutional reform has taken place, painful though this may have been for some Member States. All Member States came to recognize that the further institutionalization of their regional economic system had to necessarily take place, both in response to the new standards of the World Trade Organisation system as well as to an enlargement process extended beyond the originally projected numbers for inclusion, as a consequence of the breakdown of the world socialist system.

In the intervening period, CARICOM governments have stumbled through the change-mandate which they originally gave themselves in 1989-1992, and then through the unexpected global political and economic changes that have taken place between that time and the present. Besides, they have stumbled even as the more powerful European states have felt the need to persist with their own governance reforms.

Let us recall, also, that at the beginnings of the CARICOM integration process, the sense of urgency of response to a changing global system was more present than appears at this time. An important challenge then, following the determined effort to move from CARIFTA to CARICOM, was the British decision to give up its hesitations over what had been previously seen as a surrender of sovereignty to Europe. Facing reality, the British government came to accept that subordination to a European Court of Justice as the arbiter of the functioning of the institutional arrangements of the Community was not an imposition on Great Britain’s sovereignty. The government quickly moved to ensure, through a piece of parliamentary legislation (the European Communities Act), that British sovereignty could tolerate acceptance of the decisions of the ECJ, and of the rules mandating implementation of the decisions of the combined European Commission-European Council system.

The response by CARICOM governments to similar challenges pertaining to institutional reform has been aptly summed up by an editorial in the Barbados Nation newspaper recently. The paper, lamenting that at nearly every regional conference leaders ignite a flicker of hope that . . . Caribbean unity is high among their priorites, with no subsequent operational follow through, continued: We exist in an increasingly globalised world and it is perceived, even by politicians, that there is need to establish a stronger Caribbean identity. Political leaders, as much as anyone else, should be conscious of the question of sovereignty, precious as this is within the context of the CCJ and the regional integration movement. The paper then goes on to remind that British citizens have recourse to the European Court of Justice even though the House of Lords is located in London. Finally, the paper notes the incongruity of a situation in which even governments which have supported and subscribed to the establishment of the US$100 million dollar Trust Fund designed to separate the financial support of CCJ from the Consolidated Funds of Member States, are unwilling now to accept the jurisdiction of the Court.³ We are only left to speculate that, at a time of keen citizen awareness of presumed governmental excesses of public expenditure, those very citizens are not aware of this incongruity.

It would be ingenuous of critics of the present state of things to pretend that the hesitations of our governments are unique. The process of constitutional revision in the European integration system, since the Treaty of Maastricht has had to face the impediments which the Caribbean political leadership has balked against over the decades: the fear of the referendum approach to legitimation of substantial change as tending to be politically divisive; the fear of governments being accused of giving away too much authority to what is perceived as an essentially technocratic governance system at the integration level; and in the case of British-influenced theorists and practitioners, the unwillingness to accept the referendum as a legitimate instrument, given the mandate to governments through the periodic elections process (though of course the British imposed this requirement in some of our constitutions).

But, the European persistence in finding ways of getting around such objections has been demonstrable, with institutional innovations being sought to get around impediments—even the bold one of transforming the rejected European Constitution into a treaty, thus permitting most countries to avoid the referendum process (some countries, like Ireland, are constitutionally mandated to have a referendum). It would be instructive to find out what the EU, which has apparently financially supported our own latest effort of CARICOM institutional reform, would think of our almost casual rejection of proposals for reform on the grounds of objections with which they themselves are entirely familiar, and with which they have had to persist in coping. We can be sure that responses on our part—either (i) that the Europeans have the financial resources to grease away political objections, or (ii) that we do not have to follow what the Europeans do—would not be thought to be persuasive.

We should note, too, an effort of genuine innovation on the part of the CARICOM political and technocratic elite in an earlier period, in the face of the need to find a way of ensuring that a degree of economic preferentialism was maintained for their agricultural commodities, in consequence of Britain’s acceptance into the European Communities in 1973. Then, the Heads of Government took a decision to support the establishment of a cohesive working group of Foreign Ministers as directors of the negotiating process that also involved professional diplomats/technocrats. These Foreign Ministers then took initiatives to consolidate the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) grouping into an effective diplomatic alliance that substantially strengthened the negotiating hand of Caribbean diplomacy towards a beneficial first Lomé Convention.

In the contemporary period involving negotiations towards the proposed Economic Partnership Agreement, the institutional formula of a cohesive Foreign Minister/technocrat nexus seems to have been de facto abandoned. Along with that came an abandonment of the diplomatic alliance strategy in the face of European indications of a separatist formula of bilateral region-by-region negotiation. In the context of a CARICOM of even lesser diplomatic weighting in the contemporary setting of emerging developing-economy powers, the negotiating hand of CARICOM was effectively weakened.⁴

The institutional governance formula devised in the face of the rejection of the West Indian Commission recommendations (Ramphal) of 1992, led to the establishment of a Prime Ministerial Subcommittee on External Relations, as the guiding instrument of CARICOM negotiations, with a technocratic Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) as the effective negotiating arm. However, in the context of pressures on a predominance of Heads of Government in their efforts to re-establish economic stability in their specific states in the 1990s and onwards, this nexus could not be as effective as was desirable, and was therefore insufficiently authoritative in the cementing of the complement of tasks of strategy-diplomacy-negotiation required for the contemporary period.

So, as is evident from the public debates of the present period on the outcome of the EPA negotiations, the cohesion of the system has not been optimal and it is now evident that the participation of the Foreign Minister level (effectively the Ministerial Council on Trade and Economic Development level) in the process was insufficiently effective. (It should be observed that at the EU level, the negotiating actors at the European Commission are often not, strictly speaking, technocrats, but persons of political (Ministerial) experience supported by the technocratic cadre).

At the domestic—that is regional—level of the CARICOM system, the innovation of Heads of Government following the rejection of the WI Commission proposals, was a similar institutional mechanism of a lead Prime Minister for a particular subject. This has functioned most effectively in the spheres of the conclusion of the CSME Revised Treaty, and of a focus on health in the Caribbean, in the face of the increasing prevalence of predominantly lifestyle diseases. But here, it might be claimed, the formula of a nexus between a lead Prime Minister, a high level technocratic functionary and linkage to the Secretariat as the operational instrument, resembled more the interposition of a Commissioner model proposed by the WI Commission and reinforced in the recommendations of the Technical Working Group; and in both cases, had a time period of operation more limited than that relating to external negotiations.⁵

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

FOR THE FUTURE

So, there firstly, is clearly unfinished business relating to matching the institutional arrangements of CARICOM to the political strategizing and operationalisation of the Single Market and Economy and its external negotiating requirements. Secondly, there is the even more important task of relating these to, and supporting them through, a process of political legitimation of decisions made in these respects. This process of political legitimation is the essential task of the political leadership. Difficulties in achieving it, and hesitations in attempting it, lie at the base of the hesitations and rejections relating to the decisions on regional policy integration and governance which we have discussed here. This situation is made even more challenging at the present time, when many of the objectives and implementation tasks arising in connection with the CSME are affected by factors emanating from the international economic environment (food security, energy, changes in trading arrangements, changes in major power priorities). These are less subject to domestic manipulation.

In dealing with this we also need to note that there has been a change, since the original CARICOM commitment to the CSME, in the regional integration context itself. Put briefly as a generalization, we can observe that the dynamic of regional economic integration has changed from being government-or state-inspired, to being private sector-inspired. Financial and commercial integration has now tended to precede state-organized integration, in an era in which the state has conceded many of the instruments of economic growth and development to areas of the private sector. This is a function of the removal of impediments to movement of the factors of production in the process of implementation of structural adjustment policies, enhanced by the adoption of the relevant protocols under the Revised Treaty, and underpinned by the globalization/economic liberalization process reflected in the rules of the WTO Treaty.

In our region, this process of financial and commercial, and in some measure industrial, integration has been proceeding for some time, and has been noted particularly by Trevor Farrell in commenting on the extent of cross-border investment that has taken place, and continues to take place in the Region.

While, however, the public perceives the political directorate to be accountable for this economic regionalization, governments are generally unable to regulate such processes and seem politically helpless in the face of public concerns. They have subsequently seemed helpless also, in justifying the moves which they themselves have initiated, towards the regionalization of the governance arrangements for more effective regulation which they seek to put in place. The legitimacy of the political directorate, as elected officials, seems to be lost. And it is as if the periodic, five-year blessing of a governance mandate, which they receive from their electorates cannot survive the successful implementation of the regional initiatives which they seek to undertake.

This paralysis in the face of having to respond to global liberalization was first noticeable at the domestic level as the social democratic government of Jamaica, for example, unsuccessfully coped in the latter part of the 1970s. But the pressures were more successfully faced in Barbados through recourse to the formula of social partnership or compact. In the case of Jamaica in the 1990s, the traditional dependence on the trade union base that has been the general bulwark of the social democratic parties, failed to sustain itself under the pressures of the period of deprivation from recession and then of structural adjustment measures. But we might say that the experiences of Jamaica and then, in some measure, of Trinidad in the late 1980s/’90s, provided precedents for the more successful effort of the social contract or compact in Barbados—an initiative which sought to give both business and labour a place in decision-making relating to the institutional underpinning for economic growth initiatives of the country.

What is therefore proposed here is an elevation of that methodology of social compact to the regional level. It is true that a form of business/labor placement in the structure of the CARICOM system has been a part of the regional integration consultation process for some time; but it would not be unfair to say that governments have not, for most of the time, given this particular prominence, and that the social partners cannot be said to have been satisfied with the arrangements.

In the liberalized economic integration process which the CSME Revised Treaty of Chaguramas reflects, the state and the private sector operate in practice on par—though with differentiated roles. In the first place, the state guarantees the institutional and constitutional form of the integration system and the inter-relationships between governments that facilitate the passage and implementation of necessary domestic, regionally-approved, legislation. Secondly, the state has surrendered certain of the instruments that it previously had under the original treaty establishing the Caribbean Common Market. These allowed it to close and open the market through the autonomous use of policy or legislative instruments.

Now, the implications of the new legislative environment have been apparent in the necessity for the state to abstain from active intervention in cross-border investments, even when called up by elements of the national business sector and employees’ representatives to do so. In addition, the state has surrendered certain pro-national instruments that would have provided protection for certain domestic economic activities. This is apparent, for example, in respect of the Economic Partnership Agreement recently signed.

The original CARICOM states’ rationale for the surrender of these instruments was to provide an environment for economic activities of appropriate scale to be undertaken by nationals of the participating countries. The existence of surplus capital in certain countries of the CARICOM system has hastened the implementation of the commitment to openness; and forced the establishment of similar reciprocal arrangements with countries of the wider environment.

The private sector, as investor and producer, basically operates today under the rules of the WTO regime (to which the Revised Treaty, and, for example, the EPA are subordinate). This positioning allows the contemporary private sector a greater leverage in the actual shaping of the Single Market and Economy—particularly the latter. The inference from this is that the location of the private sector in the decision-making apparatus of the integration system must be enhanced, and the Revised Treaty must now find an appropriate institutional and legalised space for this. But a further inference is that, this having been accomplished (at least in form to begin with), the private sector acquires a certain legitimating role in respect to decisions taken together with regional governments.

On the other hand, following the domestic social compact model, an equally participatory, facilitating and legitimating role in this regional arrangement must be found for the representatives of employees, emphasizing in particular the functions and responsibilities of those involved in the regional economic transactions space. It would be important to recognize the diversity of the skill levels, and the necessity of appropriate representation of those levels, involved in cross-border activities—thus the emergence of reorganized regional trade union representation, with commitments beyond those of the traditional Congress of Labour model.

Finally, in the present era, a case has been made, at the domestic level, for a degree of participation in social compact arrangements of non-governmental organizations concerned with critical factors influencing, or affected by, the economic growth process. The modalities of inclusion of this relatively new complement of organizations would require consideration as well.

The implementation of a Regional Social Compact model, involving a more active and inter-connected role for non-state stakeholders, in what has been traditionally perceived as the province of regional governments per se, will involve, as has been the case at the national level in certain countries (for example Barbados), certain conceptual shifts relating to modes of decision-making, and who has the legitimacy to make and implement decisions.

The more cooperative basis of the Social Compact model, would therefore require, sustained discussions/negotiations between governments and the social partners to evolve an arrangement of cooperation institutionally located in the Revised Treaty—a process to which governments have not been accustomed. It implies too, an abandonment on the part of governments of what we can call the concessionary model of social partner involvement in regional decision-making, which the social partners, and in particular the private sector, have come to perceive as not particularly useful. But, as has also been found at the national level, this path provides the underpinning of a more effective political legitimation of regional decisions which the political directorate, by itself, has seemed to find difficulty achieving; and which has led to the stop-and-start-and-stop (non-)approach to regional decision implementation which was remarked upon at the beginning of this paper.

What follows from this is the necessity to ensure the legal commitment and obligation to implement decisions taken at the regional level, after substantial consultation and negotiation among relevant parties. The fact of the matter is that once a commitment is made to institutionalized participation of the investment partners involved in cross-border activities, then the legal arrangements must be put in place to ensure compliance, and sanctions in the face of non-compliance. What operates at the national level must then be seen to operate at the regional or cross-border transaction level.

Once this is accepted, then the case for a regional judiciary becomes obvious, just as, with accession to the WTO, states subscribe to its international transaction-litigation level and jurisdiction. The process implies a concession or grant of capacity to exercise jurisdiction to institutions which facilitate the state’s, and the private entity’s, functioning in cross-border relations, in much the same matter as there is a transfer of jurisdiction to independent judicial institutions at the national level. The phrase concession or grant of capacity to exercise jurisdiction is another way of saying involvement of a supra-national judicial arrangement in the adjudication of cross-border transactions which the state has already legitimized. So it is incorrect, as some are inclined to suggest, that we can have cross-border transactions without cross-border adjudication systems—that our sovereignty is touchable inside our national jurisdiction, but not outside it, in the case of cross-border transactions legitimized by treaty. Furthermore, it is a contradiction in terms to make a legal commitment to the regionalization of cross-border transactions and not make at the same time, a legal commitment to adjudication of the operational aspects of that regionalization.

That, really, is the justification for a Caribbean Court of Justice in its original jurisdiction—the subordination of CARICOM states to a new arena of law relating to matters that are cross-border in nature. Many of us, as inheritors of British notions of sovereignty and of the legitimate limitation to the stretch of the law, have difficulty in accepting this. The British themselves had much difficulty in accepting a concept of a European Court of Justice—deemed for a long time to be in contradiction to the supremacy of Parliament. But, as a former British Conservative Party Chairman, Parliamentarian and Minister and then European Commissioner for External Relations, Lord Patten, has explained in his very instructive memoirs, the British found their way towards acceptance of the needed judicial institution. If the colonial masters have conceded, is there justification for hanging on to their now self-rejected traditions?

Our conclusion here, then, is that it is really for the social partners to insist that the process of liberalized, economic integration in the region cannot proceed without amendment of current institutional decision-making structures that, de facto, exclude the partners from participating as integral actors in the regional cross-border transactions process; and to insist that the partners’ participation in such transactions must have effective legal underpinning. This represents a new approach to regional governance and administration.

It is only in this way, that after careful negotiation of the needed mode of social partner institutional integration into a CARICOM decision-making system responding to the emerging international liberalized economic environment, the social partners can ensure that, faced with the hesitations of the political directorate fearing lack of popular legitimacy or approval on critical regional decisions, the latter can be emboldened by what would represent a common will approach of the social partners and the people’s representatives.

No one suggests that this is easy. It is not, and has not been easy at the national level either. But it requires a mental or conceptual jump which the social partners must assist the political directorate in making.

FACING NEW POLICY AGENDAS

In spite of the success of bringing the single market to fruition, there is, among Member States, a muted dissonance about the benefits to be gained by one state or another under the new dispensation, in a period when