Prospects for Consolidation and Development

• Author: Duke Pollard
• Profession: Sitting senior judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest appellate municipal court of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• Pages: 885-892

Prospects for Consolidation and Development 885

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PROSPECTS FOR CONSOLIDATION

AND DEVELOPMENT

Having examined the CARICOM System in its present configuration and operation,

one question suggesting itself for response is whether the existence of this corpus of

regimes enhances the prospects of the Caribbean Community for consolidation,

adaptation and structured development. It is also a matter of conjecture that, had the

system existed in those critical years of the Federation, the political and institutional

development of the Caribbean Community might have been different. Both of these

propositions involve a measure of ineluctable subjectivism, are in the nature of

hypothetical imperatives and are not easily amenable to empirical validation on the

basis of incontrovertible evidence and a dispassionate, verifiable evaluation of factors.

For one thing, the social imponderables and variables normally impacting on political

and institutional development are infinitely extensible. For another, the imperatives of

political integration informing collective determinations from 1958 to 1962 must be

seen to be qualitatively different from the dictates of political intercourse and action at

the present time. The internal environment of the disparate political entities of the

Caribbean Community has undergone profound change of a nature and quality

impossible to have been contemplated at the time of the demise of the federal experiment.

Likewise, the external environment, determined by asymmetrical and inequitable

developments in the international community, has been radically transformed in terms

of structural and functional relationships which have impacted negatively and decisively

on the ability of the economies of Member States of the Caribbean Community to be

developed on a viable, structured and sustainable basis. Despite the foregoing, however,

it does appear to be the subject of a reasonable inference that, given a disposition by

competent decision-makers to utilise the various regimes of the CARICOM System

constructively and in an integrated manner, the prospects of the Caribbean Community

for consolidation and growth appear to be evenly balanced. The objectives and functions

of many institutions comprising the CARICOM System exhibit a discernible tendency

to complementarities, underscoring the window of opportunity to harness and exploit

their potential for synergistic development.

The Federation collapsed primarily because its political and juridical architecture

of the centre threatened the autonomy of decision of its principal constituents at the

periphery. CARICOM has so far succeeded in evading a similar fate largely because it

is expressed to be, and is, juridically, politically and functionally an association of

sovereign States as exemplified in the unanimity rule which governs decision-making