Preface

• Author: Prof. Kenneth O. Hall and Myrtle Chuck-A-Sang
• Pages: 7-8

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Introduction

PREFACE

The collection of articles offers a variety of perspectives on some key

issues for CARICOM. These are the ever-present probability of intervention,

military and otherwise, in the internal affairs of member states and in the

Community at large; border and maritime disputes which have already

revealed a potential for serious contention among member states. While some

of these disputes have been inherited from the colonial past, they fall at the

present time almost entirely within the Community’s responsibility for

attention and decision-making.

Since the Community already is engaged in myriad issues relating to its

security and physical survival in a volatile global environment, the issues

discussed pose the imperatives of expeditious and practical resolution of

disputes among member states that can avoid acrimony. The submissions

underline the value of finding consensus. If the Community is to have the

space vital for its concentration on externally based problems in the

international trading and financial regime, it can ill afford the exhibition of

a fractious and discordant group and preempt any untoward external

influences.

The collection of papers is largely from scholars who are citizens of

CARICOM and who are recognized by their work and general contribution

in the particular fields. Where a paper has been published some years ago, it

has been reproduced because of its continuing relevance to contemporary

scholarship and to the continuing search for solution.

The Joint Legal Opinion on Guatemala’s territorial claim to Belize is

included for its precise and instructive examination of the case. The Opinion