CARICOM Foreign Policy: Some Requirements for the 21st Century

• Author: Rashleigh Jackson
• Pages: 36-43

CARICOM FOREIGN POLICY:

SOME REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Rashleigh Jackson

4

An Approach to Foreign Policy

The function of a state’s foreign policy

is the advancement and protection of the

national interests in the international arena.

Foremost among these are the security of the

state and its people as well as the social and

the economic development of the inhabitants.

In other words, foreign policy is an adjunct to

domestic policy crafted and undertaken for

the satisfaction of the people’s aspirations for

a secure, bountiful and productive life. Thus

it can be said that foreign policy and domestic

policy are different facets of a single policy,

national policy; or as Braveboy-Wagner puts

it: “foreign policy is but one form of public

policy used more and more to achieve the same

ends as a domestic policy”.1 An essential task

of foreign policy therefore is to help propitiate

an external climate which will facilitate the

achievement of the goals of domestic policy.

Foreign policy practitioners have therefore

to work, inter alia, for the creation and

maintenance of an international environment

which will foster cooperation, promote

development and enhance security.

Usually, a Ministry of External/Foreign

Affairs is assigned responsibility for the

formulation, oversight and implementation of

a state’s foreign policy. Having regard, however,

to the fact that other agencies of government

are involved in external activities which have

foreign policy implications, appropriate

mechanisms of consultation and coordination

are eminently desirable so as to better achieve

the goals of foreign policy. Necessary also

are structured, well recognised and respected

mechanisms for decision-making.

The foregoing basic principles apply as

well to a group of states bound together as a

collectivity by common purpose such as the

states members of the Caribbean Community

(CARICOM). The Community has identif‌ied

as its four pillars the Single Market and

Economy, Functional Cooperation, Security,

and Coordination of Foreign Policies. The

f‌irst three can be regarded as focal concerns

of the Community’s “domestic policy”. An

operational difference between a state and a

group of states is, however, that foreign policy

positions for a collectivity of sovereign states are

determined either through the coordination of

the separate foreign policies which themselves

have commonalities as well as differences,

or by a specif‌ic decision to adopt a common

foreign policy. It is the former in the case of

CARICOM.

Even before the establishment of

CARICOM in 1973, states of the region had

taken initiatives to conf‌late their economic

and other interests, through essentially foreign

policy activities. Noteworthy initiatives

included those to forge an alliance with

countries from Africa and the Pacif‌ic (ACP), to

order their economic relations with a Europe

without colonies, and the path-breaking

decision of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and

Trinidad and Tobago jointly to establish

diplomatic relations with Cuba.