Caribbean Community

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seat of Secretariat Georgetown, Guyana
Official languages English⁴
Membership
Leaders
 -  Secretary-General Edwin W. Carrington
(since 1992)
 -  CARICOM
Heads of Government  
Establishment
 -  Treaty of Chaguaramas 1 August 1973 
Area
 -  Total 458.480 km² 
177.020 sq mi 
Population
 -   estimate 15,948,000 
 -  Density 34.8/km² 
90.0/sq mi
GDP (PPP)  estimate
 -  Total 91.296 billion 
 -  Per capita 5.725 
Website
http://www.caricom.org
Currencies
ISO 4217 codes in brackets:
¹ 14 independent states, 1 dependent territory.
² 5 dependent territories.
³ 4 independent states, 3 dependent territories.
⁴ Dutch, French and Haitian Creole also used unofficially.
⁵ Used by OECS members.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), is an organization of 15 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.[1] Its major activities involve coordinating economic policies and development planning; devising and instituting special projects for the less-developed countries within its jurisdiction; operating as a regional single market for many of its members (Caricom Single Market); and handling regional trade disputes. The secretariat headquarters is based in Georgetown, Guyana.

Overview

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

In 2001, the heads of government signed a Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas thus clearing the way for the transformation of the idea for a Common Market aspect of CARICOM into instead a Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy. Part of the revised treaty among member states 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[2] which came into effect on 1 August 1973. The first four signatories were Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

CARICOM superseded the 1965–1972 Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), which had been organised to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking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 3 January 1958 to 31 May 1962.

A Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas[3] establishing the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was signed by the CARICOM Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community on 5 July 2001 at their Twenty-Second Meeting of the Conference in Nassau, The Bahamas.

Membership

Currently CARICOM has 15 full members:

•  Antigua and Barbuda (4 July 1974)
•  Bahamas (4 July 1983) (not part of customs union)
•  Barbados (1 August 1973)
•  Belize (1 May 1974)
•  Dominica (1 May 1974)
•  Grenada (1 May 1974)
•  Guyana (1 August 1973)
•  Haiti (provisional membership on 4 July 1998, full membership on 2 July 2002)
•  Jamaica (1 August 1973)
•  Montserrat (a territory of the United Kingdom) (1 May 1974)
•  Saint Kitts and Nevis (26 July 1974 as Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla)
•  Saint Lucia (1 May 1974)
•  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1 May 1974)
•  Suriname (4 July 1995)
•  Trinidad and Tobago (1 August 1973)

Associates

Associate members Member Join day Join month Join year
 Anguilla July 1999
 Bermuda 2 2003
 British Virgin Islands 1991
 Cayman Islands 16 May 2002
 Turks and Caicos Islands July 1991

All of the associate members are British overseas territories. It is currently not established what the role of the associate members will be.

Observers

The observer members are states which engage in at least one of CARICOM's many technical committees.

•  Aruba
•  Colombia
•  Dominican Republic
•  Mexico
•  Netherlands Antilles
•  Puerto Rico
•  Venezuela

Relations

Haiti invasion

In March 2004, tensions became strained between member-state Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean Community bloc. Democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide phoned some of the other 14 CARICOM heads of government and stated that that he had been kidnapped by France and the United States and taken out of the country.[4][5] CARICOM announced that no democratically elected government in CARICOM should have its leader deposed. The 14 other heads of government sought to have Aristide visit Jamaica and share his account of events with them. This move to have Jean-Bertrand Aristide flown from the center of Africa to Jamaica infuriated the interim Prime Minister, Gérard Latortue who then announced he would be taking steps to remove Haiti from CARICOM. The CARICOM heads then announced they would be holding a vote on whether to suspend the recognition of Haiti's non-democratically elected interim Prime Minister, Gérard Latortue before he could vote on Haiti leaving CARICOM. This occurred and Haitian officials became suspended partaking in the councils of CARICOM. This did not stop Gérard Latortue, he announced that he would continue a part of his plan to suspend Haiti from CARICOM.[6] Haiti's membership had been effectively suspended from 29 February 2004 through early June 2006. Following the democratic election of Haitian President René Préval, he gave the opening address at the organisation's Council of Ministers meeting in July.