The Style Regional Decision-Making

• Author: Anthony J. Payne
• Profession: Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK. He is the author of several books on Caribbean politics and international relations
• Pages: 192-220

192 | The Political History of CARICOM

The style and manner of decision-making within the Caribbean

Community needs to be considered at this point. We have, therefore,

to turn our attention away from questions of policy and look instead at

the institutional structure through which the Community was run. It is

simple enough in outline (see Fig 1)1 and, in large part, will already have

emerged from previous chapters. The two principal organs of the

Community were the Conference of Heads of Government and the

Common Market Council of Ministers, served by a Regional Secretariat,

situated in Guyana, and headed by a Secretary General. In addition,

there were the ‘Institutions of the Community’2 ministerial bodies charged

with the performance of specific functions. Seven were listed in the

Treaty, namely, the Conference of Ministers responsible for Health and

the Standing Committees of Ministers responsible for Education,

Labour, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Agriculture and Mining. There were

also the ‘Associate Institutions’3 which are, in effect, the bodies responsible

for the operation of the various areas of functional cooperation. The

main difference between the two is that the Institutions were established

under the Community Treaty, whilst the Associate Institutions operate

under separate legal agreements and were simply given recognition by the

Treaty as bodies also working to achieve the general purposes and

objectives of the Community. They included the Caribbean Development

Bank, the Caribbean Investment Corporation, the West Indies Associated

States Council of Ministers, the Eastern Caribbean Common Market

Council of Ministers, the Caribbean Examinations Council, the Council

CHAPTER eight

The Style of Regional

Decision-Making

The Style of Regional Decision-Making| 193

of Legal Education, the Universities of Guyana and the West Indies, the

Caribbean Meteorological Council and the Regional Shipping Council

(which has since been terminated). Finally, it should be mentioned that,

Figure 1

Institutional Organisation of the Caribbean Community