Looking into CARICOM’s soul: The Charter of Civil Society

ABSTRACT

In 1997, members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) adopted a Charter of Civil Society for the Caribbean Community (The Charter) in response to recommendations from the West Indies Commission in 1992. The Charter was part of efforts to revitalise CARICOM for the 21^st century, which included adding an explicit and more direct focus on people than previously existed. The document is a human rights declaration with some participatory elements, which is non-binding on states. Nevertheless, after 26 years, The Charter remains a reality primarily on paper. This article describes and assesses The Charter and asserts that member states have not used the document to guide their approaches to human rights or people’s inclusion except somewhat coincidentally. The article also offers suggestions on revising The Charter to make it a more relevant human rights document while emphasising the importance of intentionally treating it as a foundational document for creating a regional human rights framework in CARICOM.

KEYWORDS:

• Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• civil society
• human rights
• governance
• regionalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. CARICOM member states: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Montserrat is considered a member state despite being a British Overseas Territory rather than a sovereign state.

2. Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, and St. Lucia are the CARICOM members that use the CCJ as their final court of appeal (appellate jurisdiction). The remaining states use its solely for interpreting and enforcing rules under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (original jurisdiction).

3. See for example: Engstrom (2010); Helfer (2002); Kufuor (2010); Mugwanya (1999); Shelton (2010); Smith (2022); Viljoen (2012).

4. Trinidad and Tobago ratified the Convention in 1991 but withdrew from it in 1998 citing issues relating to the treatment of the death penalty in the Convention which conflicted with the approach to domestic law in Trinidad and Tobago. At ratification in 1981, Barbados also noted its reservation relating to the death penalty.

5. The UN Women’s study of five CARICOM member states between 2016 and 2019 cited a prevalence rate of 46% of women aged 15 to 64 having experienced such violence in their lifetimes (UN Women, 2021). Moreover, according to Haynes and DeShong (2017) the hetero-normative approach to addressing gender-based violence contributes to this problem being improperly addressed. Additionally, issues relating to the abilities of women, girls, sex workers and LGBTQ persons to access sexual and reproductive health services continue in the region (Barrow, 2019).