Introduction:
The premature death of Professor Norman Girvan has robbed the Caribbean of one of its genuine intellectuals and, in particular, of the leading theorist of the regional union, Caricom. I had the misfortune of not knowing Professor Girvan personally, but feel as if I did: we have a regular email correspondence and have been guests together on a couple radio phone-in programmes. What makes this virtual friendship more real is that a very good friend and mentor, the woman I can thank for most of my political education, Selma James, the widow of the late CLR James, would often remind me that I should make contact with ‘Norman’, as she addressed him.
After the failure of the West Indies Federation in 1962, the most practicable attempt at regional unity since then has been Caricom. But, as I have said on a number of occasions here and elsewhere, although the intention is laudable, the reality has been sadly flawed. Ignoring for the time being the ill-thought out idea of a free movement of people – in a public debate in London some time ago I raised the issue of the Barbados legislation being specific about free movement for those who have graduated from the University of the West Indies and the University of Guyana, but other graduates enjoying the same benefit with the minister’s ‘discretion’. Someone once tried to persuade me that this ‘discretion’ will only be a formality, but can you imagine some small-minded minister having this weapon in his/her hands and not using it, especially if it is someone they have political objections to?
But Caricom is more than this. It is an attempt to bring those many small islands and nations in that region – whatever their history of colonialism – together to maximise their influence and shared benefits. So far we are only part of the way, with stultifying barriers preventing us from going all the way. Of these, the ultimate denial of participatory democratic rights for citizens was when Caricom redesigned its website and even the limited free access to documents it once allowed it curtailed without discussion. (In my experience they do not even reply to email queries). It is the traditional top down arrogance, Caricom citizens must take what they are given and if they want to find out about how they are governed they must pay to get the publication. It must be the only major body in the region – indeed the Western world – that charges for digital copies of reports. It is democracy at a price. One comparison that can be made with Caricom is that of Asean, the South Asian regional organisation. Over and above what has been called the Asian welfare model (see, for example: “Is there an Asian Welfare Model,” Gabriele Kohler), Asean has a comprehensive economic policy in place, the like of which Caricom has not even got round to seriously considering. This regional unity was brought even closer after the 1998 Asian financial crisis, when collectively the member-states pledged that it would not happen again. Since then they have spectacularly strengthened their cooperation and produced a document, ASEAN Vision 2020. They now have a roadmap and, as we now know, the region is the main drive of the global economy.
There is nothing convincing about Caricom’s many statements about cross-border banking and financial regulation that encourages one to have any faith in the current regime. A free trade area should remove import and export tariffs, passports for all people, not just graduates and other so-called professionals, citizens of one member-state should be citizens of all member-states. The barriers we should create should be around our external boundaries, with tougher conditions on entry, tighter controls on who can become citizens our (not Russian gangsters) and restrictions on dual nationality so that some of us cannot walk around with UK or US passports in our back pockets while pretending to be West Indians. Let us drill down our regional unity and remove the barriers that keep us trapped in small islandism.
Analysis:
Of the many Caricom and wider regional bodies, the university and cricket team aside, the one that will prove historically crucially important is the Caribbean Court of Justice. There are conflicting views as to the intellectual original of the CCJ. Some say that its roots are in the desire to break free of the Privy Council and its roots in an outdated and even oppressive historic colonialism. Others, however, while agreeing with the basic principles behind such a view, believe that the large numbers of people – mainly men – on death row throughout the Caricom region and the constant refusal of the Privy Council to endorse capital punishment was the main ideological driving force behind the decision to establish the CCJ. In other words, naked class prejudice. The CCJ should be adjudicating over fundamental points of law, constitutional matters and trade issues that threaten the cohesion of the regional body. The CCJ should be our regional Supreme Court or European Court of Justice, not a super high court. In other words, to appeal from the national Appeal Court should be restricted and then only to jurisdictions that accept the court’s judgements. In any case, to be a member or associate of Caricom all would-be members should be compelled to accept the judgements of the CCJ as a pre-condition and those pre-CCJ members should have to accept the reality of the new court or have its membership suspended. And, further, the should not be a court of first instance in cases such as the minor Myrie case, which should embarrass our legal big wigs, over and above the fact that as a nation we have chosen to ignore the court’s finding.
Policy Making and Regional Security:
Caricom has had a great opportunity, post the 2007/8 global financial crisis to assert itself and create a powerful regional financial regulatory body. It would have come up against enormous resistance from national governments and the less ethical business people, especially from the political leaders of those small island-states who would see any such expansion as removing an important part of their local power base and, politically, a step too far. Such narrow thinking is based on the view that it is better to be a big fish in a small pond, no matter how small the pond. The Clico Affair comes to mind as an example of an influential cross-border financial company which got in to trouble in nearly every jurisdiction in which it operated, yet the member-states of the regional body failed in every way to deal with it in a singular cross-border regulatory and supervisory way. The net outcome has been not only has it emphasised the organisational failure of Caricom, but it exposed the various weaknesses in the body politic and the administrative capabilities. After six years, Clico is yet to be resolved. But the public and diplomatic policy-making of Caricom, its regulatory and supervisory failures did not just end with Clico. We only have to look at the constant presence of the Canadian, US and British naval forces in the Caribbean sea on so-called drug patrol to see that we have failed even to secure our own territorial borders.
The so-called Regional Security System is farcical, not only in having a retired police officer as head of what passes as a military organisation, but its lack of a detailed policy further emphasises another regional weakness. Created as a policy poodle to Reagan’s illegal invasion of Grenada, the RSS has been another of those regional burdens on Barbadian taxpayers for which the nation gets no obvious benefit. Why site the CCJ in Trinidad when Trinidad has declined to participate in the court, it is like going back to the West Indies Federation. As soon as the ship sprung a leak, as a result of the action of stowaway Bustamante, Captain Eric Williams was overboard.
Democratic Deficit:
Whatever the politics and lack of vision, the fundamental flaw with Caricom as presently constituted is its obvious democratic deficit. Despite its good intentions, this democratic deficit, which is unforgiveable in this day and age, impacts greatly in Barbados: an unelected constituency council, a parliament elected for a fixed five year term, an unelected Senate, and an unelected Caricom ministers’ forum. There is no constitutional arrangement for the recall of ministers, no constitutional way of challenging Caricom policy decisions, no democratic intervention in any of its policies. We badly need a Caricom parliament so that the people who speak on behalf of the region are people elected by voters in the region.
Conclusion:
I cannot emphasise enough that in time, the CCJ will emerge as the most important of the regional institutions which Caricom has given birth to and its work load will be more on financial markets, treaties and trade regulations, than as a final appeal court for basic criminal matters, as a constitutional tribunal or even as a court of first instance for future Myrie cases. However, there is a greater constitutional reasoning, based on the global collapse of the Westphalian model of the nation-state and the rise of regional and global institutions to replace what independent constitutional jurisdictions previously assumed as a matter of course were their responsibility and theirs alone. Of the post-Second World War institutions, the three best known are the United Nations, and the Brettons Woods organisations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But a number of other organisations have emerged in recent years with enormous power and influence over the internal and external affairs of nations, from the World Trade Organisation, to the International Criminal Court. Other bodies such as some big and powerful non-governmental organisations have more influence and greater access to international bodies than most nation-states. Truth is that political debate in Barbados, and most of the other English-speaking Caribbean islands, is often based on mudslinging and yaboo politics, rather than around serious issues, therefore neither in the lead up to, or post constitutional years, have we had a national conversation about who we are and how we see ourselves in the future. There is a price to pay for this neglect. The reality is that social and economic policy across borders could, within a generation, lift the quality of life of the six million or so Caricom citizens to the level of Norway or New Zealand.
Take as another example, a simple Caricom-wide centralised procurement policy for goods and services bought from outside the region. Such an approach to medicines, certain foods and other commodities, the importation of world-class surgeons to carry out vital operations and other professional services, negotiated from a greater position of collective strength, can lead to massive savings which can then be used to provide additional services to Caricom citizens. On the other hand, having fifteen individual nations, of varying economic strengths, trying to negotiate individually with global commercial firms many of which often make higher quarterly returns than the entire budgets of those islands, will be a real financial Goliath versus a David. This time, however, the Biblical outcome may not be repeated.
Another obvious failing of Caricom is that of food security and the agricultural economy generally. Of the Caricom members, Guyana alone has more than enough land to feed Caricom and millions more. A nation that is bigger than England, with a population of about 750000, Greater Georgetown alone can easily fit all six million Caricom citizens in to its borders with room to spare. With a well-planned agricultural policy, of ground provisions, rice, cattle, and other essentials, along with its burgeoning shrimps industry, in food terms alone, Guyana is a nation waiting to explode. Then we have the citrus-producing islands – mainly Grenada, St Lucia and Dominica – which can meet all regional needs and more, with the surplus going towards the manufacturing of marmalades, jams and other assortments. The weakness is the collective failure of politicians to let go, to see the bigger picture of what real Caribbean unity – extending beyond the English-speaking islands – can mean in lifting our regional and hemispheric influence. It is a barrier to development based on the short-termism of today’s politicians rather than the long-term advantages of future generations.
Before I go, why do we have a ‘foreign minister’ in charge of Caricom affairs? Our neighbours, fellow members of the regional union, people who share in the main a history and culture with us are not ‘foreign’ or, as the Americans call us, ‘aliens’. The times when Caricom comes together, such as the discussion over reparation and the Air Passenger Duty, are in the main peripherally interesting, but not of any substantial importance. They do indicate, nevertheless, what deep regional unity can possibly achieve.
This analysis is in memory of the late Professor Norman Girvan.
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