A Cohesive CARICOM Foreign Policy: Harnessing a Regional Public Good

• Author: Kenrick Hunte
• Pages: 24-35

A COHESIVE CARICOM FOREIGN POLICY:

HARNESSING A REGIONAL PUBLIC GOOD

C. Kenrick Hunte

Introduction

A Cohesive CARICOM Foreign Policy

(CCFP) that integrates the preferences of all

Member States is a regional public good that

can improve the welfare of all Caribbean

people. Such a regional public good, which

was f‌irst def‌ined in the Treaty of Chaguaramas

(1973), is intended to enhance the leverage,

reach, and effectiveness of Member States in

negotiations with third States or with other

groups of States.1 More specif‌ically, a CCFP

should promote the collective interests of

CARICOM in the area of economic prosperity

and advancement; it should support political,

cultural, religious and social freedoms; it should

emphasise peaceful cooperation, regional

security and environmental sustainability;

it should seek to integrate the Diaspora into

its programming framework so as to bolster

its leverage with third States; and it should

accentuate the value of human rights, equity,

fairness, and good governance.

CARICOM Member States have

supported these values at their national levels;

but they have not been able to extend this as a

collective, public good at the international level.

This shortfall in expectations could be due in

part to the pull of sovereignty that may have

forestalled collective CARICOM agreements,

as Heads of Government and other politicians

cannot be seen as to be too far ahead of their

constituents, or way beyond their political

mandate. Moreover, CARICOM States that

act independently of each other would not

generate a CCFP, for Small States do not have

the required resources or suff‌icient inf‌luence

in international circles to inf‌luence change

in their direction.2 Instead, only if they work

together would this outcome of a CCFP be

attained in a global arena that is placing more

emphasis on multilateral rather than unilateral

action. Some critical issues therefore are: How

can CARICOM make sovereignty subservient

to a CCFP? What institutional arrangements

can be employed to facilitate this process of

building and maintaining a CCFP? What type

of mechanism would be required to foster an

environment of trust, full information sharing,

and robust accountability by those entrusted

with programme execution and decision-

making? How can Caribbean citizens, and

especially those in the Diaspora, be directly

involved with the integration process that,

for the most part, appears to be driven by

policymakers and bureaucrats, without much

input from ordinary citizens?

This paper explores these and other issues.

It posits that in an environment of limited

resources, increasing food and energy prices,

and the loss of European preferences and

export income, an independent Foreign Policy

strategy practiced separately by each country

in CARICOM is counter-productive to

achieving a CCFP and robust multilateralism.

Such an independent approach would limit

success and expand wedge issues among

CARICOM countries; bilateralism would

thrive, diminishing the leverage of CARICOM

in the international community. For instance,

3