Introduction: CARICOM @ 50 – is it time to decolonise southern regionalism?

KEYWORDS:

• Southern regionalism
• CARICOM
• decolonisation
• open regionalism
• mature regionalism

Decolonisation is all the rage these days in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and other forms of ‘cancel culture’. There is a profound recognition that while the decolonial movements of the post-World War II era led to the self-determination of several states from colonialism, coloniality still persists today, and as such, the pervasive social, cultural, and political influence that is linked to modernity, racial capitalism, white supremacy and other facets of Western developmentalism are still at play, and they need to be decolonised. In this regard, countries may have freed themselves constitutionally from their imperial masters, but their institutions remain the tools of these masters. Thus, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is one example of an institution or ‘trans-regional regime’ (Jules, 2008) founded on Western notions of modernity and progress and ideologies of cosmopolitism that have trapped it and its members in an ‘implementation deficit cycle’. As a trans-regional regime, for the last fifty years, CARICOM has focused on the pillars of economic integration, foreign policy coordination, functional cooperation, and security (added as a pillar in 2007) as it has shifted from the coordination of regional trading agreements (RTAs) during the 1970s towards the coordination of regional governance activities at all levels. Trans-regional regimes, such as CARICOM, ‘facilitate the exchange of policy ideas and acts as a multi-level governance institution by addressing issues that have come from the inability of national governments to control global, regional, and transnational policy processes’ (Jules, 2015, p. 310).

In what follows, I explore the need to decolonise institutions or trans-regional regimes such as CARICOM and what this means for the next fifty years. I begin by discussing that CARICOM’s colonial structure of ‘neo-functionalism’ (Haas, 1958) and ‘intergovernmentalism’ (see Moravcsik, 1993), which has given rise to an implementation deficit, is dated and needs to be retaught in light of the pausing of globalisation, the rise of deglobalisation, and the retreat towards regionalism, and RTAs. Next, I discuss the rise of open regionalism and mature regionalism as part of efforts to widen (based on a purely market-driven approach) and deepen (through meaningful development using production integration¹ [later renamed open regionalism]). Consequently, the regional project is identified as a way to deal with the fallout of the era of ideological pluralism (differentiated methods of economic development) that dominated the 1980s. This is followed by a discussion on why and how CARICOM can decolonise itself in an era of de/globalisation and competing regional entities through the use of some of the tools offered by comparative regionalism. I then conclude by providing a brief overview of the articles in this special issue and how they reflect on fifty years of Southern Caribbean integration and the lessons that can be learned.

The birth of a trans-regional regime

Every time pundits have prophesied the death of CARICOM, it reinvents itself and emerges from the ashes like a phoenix. So today, the question arises: Should CARICOM not be cancelled? Does it still have a purpose at 50? and What has CARICOM done for the ordinary Caribbean citizen? On the surface, these give the impression of simplistic questions, but if one scrapes below the surface of these questions, one will find compelling evidence that CARICOM’s success and/or failure is being judged by Western canons, benchmarks, and notions of success are indebted to lingering effect of colonialism. This is because CARICOM was built upon Western ideologies of modernity and progress and the idea that in order for the small states of the Caribbean to survive and thrive without their former colonial masters, they needed European-like institutions to chase after the ideals of modernism. While modernity is never fully defined and becomes linked to developmentalism, CARICOM’s leaders have never genuinely questioned if the institutions and the trappings they have developed reflect Western ideals or if they represent the visions and aspirations of the peoples of the Caribbean. Nevertheless, to the average Western critic and many Caribbean nationals, CARICOM is viewed as a failure; that is, it is passé.

The longue durée of CARICOM is one rooted in identity, nationhood, and Western modernity. It is found in the post-independence period where Caribbean leaders (all of whom were educated in universities of the former empire) sought to envision what a collection of small settlements with diverse populations that had been brought together through the looting, plundering, raping, and pillaging of Indigenous lands, the enslavement of Africans, and subsequent indentureship of South and East Indians and Chinese, could become. This striving for acceptance within the rules-based interstate system led to the focus on Western ideas of development and the eventual pursuit of capitalism with aid from the West (discussed later). The challenge is that in striving for political independence and later regional interdependence, Caribbean leaders never fully addressed the psychological elements of coloniality. As such, the institutions that were developed in the post-independence period were riddled with the ideologies of the former colonialists. One such institution is CARICOM, and now that CARICOM has survived for 50 years, it is argued that now is the time for us to consider whether or not reforming/decolonising CARICOM can address some of the challenges that plague it.

While we do not know what was in the heads of the forbears of CARICOM as they founded the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) in 1968 in the wake of the failed West Indian Federation that lasted from 1958 to 1962, what we do know is that when CARIFTA was transformed into the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) in 1973, there were not many viable models of economic integration to fashion itself after. So, in opting to use the models of neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism, regional leaders choose the two best options at that time. Moreover, these two integration theories were considered the best alternative to protect national sovereignty while accessing intra-CARICOM trade. This decision was reached after the West Indian Federation, a political unit, failed spectacularly due to internal differences, insular nationalism, and the secession of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. After all, it was a union built by the colonial powers to gradually allow the small states of the Caribbean to gain self-determination and control over their economic activities.

When the Prime Ministers of British Guiana (now Guyana) and Barbados, Forbes Burnham and Errol Barrow, met in July 1965 to discuss establishing free trade between these two countries, the seeds for CARIFTA were sown. Their invitation to V. C. Bird (Prime Minister of Antigua) to sign the Agreement of Dickenson Bay in Antigua on 15 December 1965, signalled the creation of CARIFTA. The agreement was supposed to come into force in 1967, but it was stalled after Eric Williams (Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago) was invited to sign it, thereby facilitating a region-wide agreement. Finally, CARIFTA was signed on 15 March in Georgetown, Guyana, and in St. John’s, Antigua, on 18 March 1968, and came into effect on 1 May 1968, with the participation of Antigua, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana. CARIFTA, as a free trade agreement, was limited to the trade in intra-regional goods. Of course, CARIFTA’s structure took on similar qualities to those of the European Council, including incorporating the Head of Government Conference (which predated CARIFTA to 1963) as part of its functioning institutions with the sole purpose of steering regional integration, approving new or significant initiatives related to CARIFTA, and establishing committees and working parties to examine CARIFTA-specific issues. The CARIFTA Council modelled after the European Free Trade Association Council of Ministers, was tasked with administering the agreement and settling disputes. Each member state had a seat on the Council and had one vote, and decisions were based on unanimous voting. The Commonwealth Caribbean Regional Secretariat (which functioned under two divisions – the Trade and Integration Division and the General Services and Administrative Division) was the administrative organ of the Association with responsibility for servicing both the Heads of Government Conference and the council, ensuring that decisions and resolutions were implemented, and to make recommendations.

In 1973, when CARIFTA was suspended and later transformed into the Common Market of the Caribbean Community under the Treaty of Chaguaramas (CARICOM, 1973), regional leaders turned to the European Union for a model of Caribbean economic integration. They thus modelled almost all of its institutions, organs, and principles after European integrative mechanisms. The ensuing Caribbean Community that would arise out of CARIFTA took shape based upon two principles that combine attributes of intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism. Lewis (2006) notes, intergovernmentalism (which recognises the continuing importance of individual member states in determining the path of the integration process), and elements of neofunctionalism (which is premised on the principle of shared sovereignty or the collective exercise of such sovereignty in specified areas) are the cornerstone of CARICOM’s economic project. Intergovernmentalism² principles hold that CARICOM’s members control the level and intensity of integration based upon ‘agreement’ on policy responses and ‘consensus’ on institutional arrangements without undermining national sovereignty. Neo-functionalist doctrines grant CARICOM’s member states the ability to remove intra-regional trade barriers through cooperation, which in turn generates a spill-over effect whereby as one sector becomes more integrated, it will lead to other areas integrating. Moreover, member states are guided by the principles of ‘proportionality … institutional arrangements devised [from] Community action shall not exceed what is necessary to achieve actions specified in the Revised Treaty’ and the principle of ‘subsidiarity, which asserts that regional action would not be pursued in cases where action by individual Member States is sufficient to achieve the specific goals of the Community … ’ (Lewis, 2006, p. 5). Despite the recommendations of the influential Report of the West Indian Commission (Ramphal, 1993), these Western ideologies and principles have led to an implementation deficit as CARICOM has no supernational authority, and the implementation of regional decisions is not mandatory and is left to member states. CARICOM’s Heads of Government, the highest decision-making body, dismissed the contents of the Report of the West Indian Commission (Ramphal, 1993) and instead created a Technical Working Group on Governance (Lewis, 2006), which concluded that CARICOM is first and foremost, premised upon elements of intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism and therefore, handicapped by the theoretical practicalities that undergird CARICOM’s economic integrative project; that is, regionally approved mandates and agenda-setting decisions are subjected to the proclivities of national institutional mechanisms. This tension stems from the regional perception that it needs to fight off ‘existential threats – the challenges to the viability of [Caribbean] states as functioning socio-economic-ecological-political systems; due to the intersection of climatic, economic, social and political developments’ (Girvan, 2010b, p. 1).

Existential threats and rethinking governance: from open regionalism to mature regionalism

In the early 1980s, CARICOM countries became embroiled in an internal conflict that was defined as ‘ideological pluralism’ as the countries of Guyana, Grenada, and Jamaica pursued non-capitalist developmentalist trajectories and opted for cooperative socialism, revolutionary socialism, and democratic socialism, respectively. This internal conflict would drive the revisions to the Treaty of Chaguaramas that commenced in 1989 with the Grand Anse Declaration (CARICOM, 1989) and was elaborated upon by the West Commission (Ramphal, 1993). Nine Protocols (including (i) establishing community institutional arrangements such as organs, councils, bodies, and associated institutions; (ii) setting up arrangements for establishment [the right of Caribbean nationals to set up business], services, capital, and movement of community nationals; (iii) developing industrial policies; (iv) developing trade policies; (v) developing agricultural policies; (vi) developing transport policies; (vii) working with disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors; (viii) developing competition policies, consumer protection, dumping and subsidies; and (ix) working on disputes settlement) were identified as being foundational for the development of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas in 2001, which created a rules-based Community and also produced the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).

The 1989 Grand Anse Declaration (CARICOM, 1989) and subsequent Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (CARICOM, 2001) did not eliminate the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity, creating complications for regional integration. Instead, the Revised Treaty converted the model of production integration (which was the driving force behind the Common Market) ‘ … from the realm of inter-industry relation in productive activities to the free movement of factors of production in the service enterprise efficiency’ (Girvan, 2006, p. 11). This emphasis would focus on a ‘new technocratic model of development’ (Payne & Sutton, 2007, p. 1) in the form of open regionalism through production integration. Open regionalism is said to serve two masters – ‘protectionism’ and ‘free trade’ (Girvan, 2010a, 2010c; Mace et al., 2010; Nicholls et al., 2001) given its emphasis on outward-oriented and internationally competitive strategies (Kuwayama, 1999; McBrian, 2001), reducing barriers on imports from other countries (Wei & Frankel, 1995), reducing intra-regional transactional costs (Fernández, 1997; Reynolds, 1997), liberalising intra-regional markets (Kuwayama, 1999), and restructuring the public sector (Bishop & Payne, 2010; Sutton, 2006), all while countries are integrating into the world economy. The focus on open regionalism led to the widening of the integrative movement, which allowed Suriname (in 1995) and Haiti (in 2000) to join CARICOM, but it did not bring much progress in the economic areas during this period. However, during this interval, the functional aspects of CARICOM thrived as accomplishments were made in health, education, and transportation (Jules, 2014).

When open regionalism failed to deliver its intended promises, Caribbean leaders returned to the table, and in acknowledging the implementation deficit that has plagued the region, they came up with mature regionalism as a governance principle. However, the Rose Hall Declaration on Regional Governance and Integrated Development (CARICOM, 2003) reaffirmed

… that CARICOM is a Community of Sovereign States … [and] … the development of a system of mature regionalism in which critical policy decisions of the Community taken by Heads of Government, or by other Organs of the Community, will have the force of law throughout the Region as a result of the operation of domestic legislation and the Treaty of Chaguaramas appropriately revised, and the authority of the Caribbean Court of Justice in its original jurisdiction – taking into account the constitutional provisions of member states. (p. 1)

As Jules (2017) discusses, ‘in rearticulating state sovereign, the Rose Hall Declaration speaks to the intergovernmentalist nature of Caribbean integration’ (p. 483). At the same time, it calls for integrated development that seeks to ‘promote macro-economic convergence, the unification of capital and financial markets, and the early unrestricted movement of people within CARICOM’ (CARICOM, 2003, p. 1) given that regional decisions agreed upon are not ‘directives’ that have the force of CARICOM Community law, and consequently are not automatically transposed into national law. In other words, ‘the modalities through which the CSME instruments, institutional, legal and economic, are constructed are based simply on intergovernmental cooperation’ (Brewster et al., 2002, p. 2) since CARICOM countries regard sovereignty as significant to their political developments given that they achieved self-determination less than fifty years ago. Therefore, mature regionalism has emerged as a governance mechanism allowing CARICOM states to enter the global marketplace. Given that historically Caribbean integration has been premised upon ‘discretionary intergovernmental cooperation’ (Brewster, 2003), by the time the Caribbean Single Market (CSM) came into effect in 2006 with 12 out of the now 15 CARICOM member states and calls for removal of ‘all obstacles to intra-regional movement of skills, labour and travel, harmonising social services (education, health, etc.), providing for the transfer of social security benefits and establishing common standards and measures for accreditation and equivalency’ (CARICOM, 1989, p. 1).

Cancel culture and CARICOM

With the pause of globalisation and the retreat towards regionalisation driven by deglobalisation, today, almost all countries are part of some regional amalgamation, which has consequences for the resuscitation of globalisation. In fact, many have argued that the era of regional states has arisen. Within this context, it is contended that it is time for CARICOM, as a trans-regional regime, to decolonise itself as it thinks about the next fifty years and how CARICOM should embark upon the restructuring of its economic project. Now more than ever is the right time for CARICOM to move beyond the psychological dependence of coloniality and think about alternatives to its economic project outside of the Western orthodoxy. As such, decolonisation offers CARICOM an alternative to its current model by imploring it to rely upon the fifty years of Indigenous knowledge that it has developed as a trans-regional regime and consider ways in which this knowledge can be used to restructure the role, scope, and function of the organisation. Regional institutional decolonisation is a complex and multifaceted program that needs buy-in from all stakeholders at all levels. It begins with the acknowledgement that coloniality – the lasting effect of Euromodernity continues to shape present-day political, economic, social, and knowledge systems – persists, and therefore, decolonisation is the dissolution of colonial power in both the metropole and periphery as a polity move from political and economic dependence to self-determination. While decoloniality, which emerged in Latin America, is viewed as a liberatory struggle against global coloniality and involves the delinking, ‘(to detach) from that overall structure of knowledge in order to engage in an epistemic reconstitution’ (Mignolo, 2017, p. 2, emphasis in original). However, in what follows, I use decolonisation to mean the political process of dismantling the structures of colonialism. As a paradigm, decolonisation is dynamic and encourages the disruption of asymmetrical and colonial intersubjective relations shaped by the logics of colonialism and settler colonialism. These logics have led to epistemicide (the displacement of existing knowledge), linguicide (the imposition of colonial languages and displacement of indigenous languages), and culturecide (the displacement and replacement of indigenous cultures).

CARICOM’s raison d’etre is deeply linked to the Western discourse of modernity and developmentalism. This discourse is not just linked to any modernity; it is linked to capitalist development that is being pushed upon CARICOM since it relies on donors (who are former colonial masters) to fund most of its projects and ideas of development. While CARICOM states are micro and small states that are reliant on development assistance, for too long, the tone and scope of this assistance have been dictated by the West, even in instances where member states know that the assistance is not being placed in the areas that it would yield the best outcomes. Instead, the region has lived with the indiscriminate transfer of so-called best practices of gold standards of various reforms that have not provided the intended results. Thus, CARICOM needs to realise that capitalist development is not the only development trajectory available to it and its member states and that there are different types of modernity or what has been called ‘pluriversal’ thinking, which incorporates indigenous cosmos and ontologies, Southern epistemologies, and African cosmologies (Assié-Lumumba, 2017; Escobar, 2020; Mignolo, 2011; de Sousa Santos, 2014). Pluversality thinking necessitates a departure from the conventional and normative paradigms, ushering in a reorientation grounded in diverse epistemic traditions. In short, the decolonial moves beyond the post-colonial since ‘the de-colonial shift, in other words, is a project of de-linking while post-colonial criticism and theory is a project of scholarly transformation within the academy’ (Mignolo, 2007, p. 452). This sort of thinking begins with the idea that

the discourse of modernism, in which the rhetoric of empire was formed, emphasised the rational and the orderly, praised the technological improvements that assured the West its only field of superiority, and rejoiced in an attitude of imagined differences that allowed terms like ‘primitive’ and ‘backward’ to stand as antonyms for the nouns’ progress’ and ‘betterment’, these last two providing the themes of the meganarratives that gave unity to that age’s endeavours and imposed their cultural bias on the world at large. (Betts, 2012, p. 31)

In this way, CARICOM needs to take up or develop its own discourse of modernity that delinks it from Western notions of progress. Given the intersectionality of coloniality, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism, decolonisation should be ‘born out of a realisation that ours is an asymmetrical world order that is sustained not only by colonial matrices of power but also by pedagogies and epistemologies of equilibrium’ (Ndlovu–Gatsheni, 2013, p. 11). The colonial past has a long shadow over its past subjects. Thus, a place for CARICOM, to begin with, would be recognising that neoliberal developmentalism should be viewed as ‘an almost evangelical ideology of salvation through industrialisation, modernisation and integration into the global political economy through free trade and the exploitation of natural resources’ (Adelman, 2018, p. 18).

A second aspect of regional decolonisation is getting rid of the intricate principles of proportionality and subsidiarity and systematically evaluating power dynamics within the regional framework, emphasising challenging and ameliorating asymmetries that may have originated from colonial histories. This involves a comprehensive review of the current economic models, looking for alternatives that are more attuned to the desires and aspirations of the member states while acknowledging and rectifying any historical injustices perpetuated by colonial economic structures. Such an endeavour requires thoroughly considering trade relations, resource distribution, and financial frameworks within the trans-regional regime to foster a more equitable and just economic landscape to allow the CSME, particularly the CSE, to materialise. Thus, decolonisation involves dismantling the remnants of the multifaceted political ideology and structural principles associated with colonialism. It constitutes a counterproject aimed at reshaping power dynamics between oppressed and oppressors. The decolonisation of CARICOM entails a nuanced and multifaceted re-examination and restructuring of the trans-regional regime, its organs, and instruments to redress historical imprints of colonialism. In CARICOM’s case, this involves not relying on European integration models and not holding on to outdated governance models. Instead, it may focus on removing the remnants of colonial institutions and the imperial gaze attached to monies it receives in the name of development. Decolonisation represents the revision of a future beyond colonial domination’s explicit and implicit residues.

A way forward: the perils and promise of the next 50 years

The slogan for CARICOM @ 50 is ‘50 Years Strong: A Solid Foundation to Build On’, yet many questions remain. At the 2023 50^th anniversary ceremony, Keith Rowley, Prime Minister Trinidad and Tobago and Host of the Conference, lamented the limitations that the region has faced today and noted that

limitations that are built into its [CARICOM] design given that we are sovereign states free to choose our own policies and pursue our own goals. There have been times when in the last fifty years, these limitations have challenged us and still, here we are today, a family of nations replete with the wisdom that comes from facing those challenges head-on, we are stronger together (CARICOM, 2023, para. 9)

Such challenges include the rise of several extra-regional hemispheric projects across the region (UNASUR, CELAC, ALBA-TCP, SELA, and PetroCaribe), which count many CARICOM members as members of these economic projects or customs unions, and this has implications for CARICOM beyond fifty. With the rise of extra-regional hemispheric, we can no longer focus on ‘early’, ‘old’, and ‘new’ regionalism and should view the emergence of ‘comparative regionalism’ as a way to describe the study of (‘world’) regions. As such, comparative regionalism offers some core concepts as CARICOM seeks to reform/decolonise itself. First, CARICOM should not measure its success or failure based on the use of Eurocentric models of regionalism. The Euro-dominance of regionalism is not an adequate measurement for CARICOM to use, instead, it may find merit in more pluralistic approaches that simultaneously focus on both state and non-state actors within both formal and informal institutions as it seeks to foster a human-centred approach to regionalism. Second, regionalism today is not solely a European affair or Europe versus the rest, but it is a multidimensional phenomenon, connecting both state and non-state actors diagonally in a variety of forms and institutional designs. Thus, CARICOM needs to think of its integrative project as not just one that has been socially constructed, imagined, and heterogeneous but also as one that is consolidated, dynamic, and flexible.

Caribbean leaders have recognised that integration is on the verge of being stalled again as there is a retreat towards regionalism. CARICOM has the possibility to consider extending membership to its observers and to countries such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic to strengthen its regional position. Moreover, China is waiting in the wings, continuing to invest in projects all over the region. At the same time, the African Union has begun to establish trans-regional relations (see Chevy et al., 2024). Still, several problems persist, although CARICOM claims it has functioned as a collaborative mechanism for the past fifty years. CARICOM has also realised that its rules-based Community under the Revised Treaty needs to be updated, and as such, it has launched the Inter-Governmental Task Force (IGTF) on Treaty Revision. One can only hope that the task force will recommend a way forward that gets past the focus on sovereignty and its incompatibility with supranationalism, where regulation and laws made at this level have a direct national effect. While this is not an invitation for CARICOM to copy the European Union’s supranational personality, it is an invitation for CARICOM to find an alternative to the implementation deficit that has pigeonholed its directives.

In light of the recent Conference of the Parties (COP 27) held in the United Emirates, Barbados’s Prime Minister Mia Mottley called attention to the fact that the archaic post-World War II Bretton Woods institutions are not working in the face of new inter-related crises and challenges faced by emerging economies and developing countries such as CARICOM’s members. She proposed the Bridgetown Initiative as a way forward to deal with the climate crisis and the burden of the debt crisis. The Initiative calls for a global mechanism that tweaks the financial architecture and accelerates private sector investment in mitigation and reconstruction. If this call is heeded, it would create a new kind of politics that could aid CARICOM’s quest for decolonisation. It can bring about a new type of regional institution or a trans-regional regime that could be based on a human-centred approach to economic integration.

This special issue

The articles in this special issue on CARICOM @ 50 tackle many of the issues raised above by drawing attention to how CARICOM may want to reform/decolonise itself in light of the retreat from regionalism currently taking place. The authors not only discuss the challenges that CARICOM is facing @ 50, but they also provide structure and guidance on how these challenges can be overcome. In doing so, they draw attention to five different areas of concern, which include: (i) reflecting on why functional cooperation has been so successful in CARICOM; (ii) the role of partnerships in the reparations movement; (iii) the consequences of neglecting the Charter of Civil Society; (iv) the lessons that can be learned from Latin America and Asian regionalism; and (v) the ways in which artificial intelligence can reshape CARICOM.

Edward Green’s article reflects upon functional cooperation, one of CARICOM’s four central pillars and the area of regional integration in which CARICOM has made the most strides over the last fifty years. In his reflection, Greene argues that as a non-economic driver of regional integration, functional cooperation has served as ‘a broader arc of diplomacy that compounds the contradictions and challenges the Community faces’. He identifies that the history of functional cooperation, which dates back to the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas, is one of challenges and successes, and functional cooperation has created several regional institutions that have strengthened the economic integrative project. In contextualising the voices of several of the forefathers and foremothers of regional integration, he calls for an enhanced version of functional cooperation and uses outliers such as the newly formed CARICOM Commission on the Economy as an example of the type of regional institutions/organs, which moves away from mimicking European institutions/organs and is based on Indigenous knowledge. He concludes by discussing the rise of ‘functional institutional cooperation’, which he identifies as the clustering of institutions to respond to the functional needs of the Community.

Chevy Eugune, Tavis D. Jules and Tinesh Indrarajah speak about how deeper cooperation between CARICOM and the African Union (AU) can create a transregional regime for reparations to address the past atrocities of slavery and indentureship. In making this argument and centring on reparations from a transregional perspective, they rely on Robin Kelley’s critical nine theses on decolonisation and CARICOM’s current 10-point Plan. They identify three gaps – the representation of the Indigenous Caribbean in theory but not in practice, the overarching emphasis on the state-to-state approach to reparations, and the lack of youth participation – that need additional research and expand upon the idea of the Caribbean-Africa Knowledge Program (CAKP) – as a new mechanism for knowledge transfer that reimagines cooperation and alliance between the two regions. In distinguishing between the neoliberal view of reparations and decolonisation, they argue that at the heart of reparations is seeking justice and reconciliation to eradicate racism and exploitation. In making this argument, they move away from focusing on monetary claims for reparations, which have consumed much of the recent literature, and draw attention to epistemic justice. They conclude by laying out practical steps as to how CARICOM and the AU can advance the global reparations movement with the aid of education.

Kristina Hinds discusses CARICOM’s Charter of Civil Society and its implication for CARICOM at fifty. She argues that while CARICOM has been able to navigate numerous obstacles over the past fifty years, it has neglected the 1997 Charter, which was in response to 1992 recommendations from the West Indies Commission. In discussing The Charter, she draws attention to the evolving role of civil society within The Charter and the fact that The Charter is more of a human rights document rather than a commitment towards advancing civil society participation. She highlights that given The Charter’s non-binding nature; it merely serves as another ‘dusty’ declaration of commitment rather than a progressive document that expresses a regional commitment to civil society. In this way, civil society is presented as something aspirational. Moreover, there are no reporting mechanisms, and monitoring is not mandatory, which makes The Charter ineffective. Given these shortcomings, Hinds concludes by proposing a revision of The Charter that would make it binding on member states and have reporting and monitoring mechanisms. She also suggests that updating The Charter would allow it to address some of the current challenges that the region is facing.

Tinesh Indrarajah, Victoria Desimoni, and Tavis D. Jules discuss the lessons that can be learned from other regionalism(s) in an era of deglobalisation as CARCICOM turns fifty. These authors use a comparative regional approach to examine CARICOM’s integrative model in relation to that of Latin America and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Following a comparative regional approach, they argue that European integration should not be held up as the gold standard and that lessons can be learned from other Southern integration movements. They highlight that one lesson CARICOM can take from LA is how to avoid fragmentation, given that several CARICOM members are also members of Latin American regional integrative arrangements. From ASEAN, they highlight that CARICOM needs to (i) invest in greater South-South cooperation to facilitate deeper regional leverage, (ii) focus on what they call ‘Caribbean Centrality’, which implies breaking the bonds of coloniality and imperialism that still exist, and (iii) strengthen thematic issues areas where different heads of government assume responsibility for different portfolios. They conclude by arguing that although we live in an era of neoliberal regionalism, driven by globalisation and the retreat towards regionalism, there are valuable lessons that CARICOM can borrow from these other two Southern integrative movements that can enhance mature regionalism and correct its implementation deficit.

Florin D. Salajan, Theodore L. Barnes and Anna Becker look at artificial intelligence’s role in shaping national education trajectories by developing a comparative study between the European Union and CARICOM. This conceptual paper explores what CARICOM’s AI policy initiatives can learn from the EU’s emerging regulatory framework. In discussing the rise of regulatory frameworks in the context of the recent explosion of AI, they discuss the intensification of AI regimes to harmonise legislative authority, which has elevated certain areas, such as education, to the category of high risk. This exacerbates the existing post-colonial dependencies as CARICOM looks to the global economic landscape for guidance on AI. These authors argue that as AI takes shape in the region and more people use it, CARICOM must develop a regulatory framework compatible with its integration models. Looking at how the EU and CARICOM have responded to AI; they note stark contrasts between the two approaches. The EU has responded with a comprehensive regulatory policy, while CARICOM has responded with a ‘wait-and-see approach’. They conclude by suggesting that the consequence is that CARICOM may end up borrowing or mimicking the EU’s AI policy scripts rather than coming up with one that suits the region’s needs. Their study has broader implications for CARICOM at fifty in that it adequately illustrates one of the issues that plagues Caribbean regionalism, which all authors in this special issue touch upon: CARICOM’s implementation deficit.

I hope the articles in this special issue on CARICOM @ 50 will spark conversation and response to some of the ideas that authors have put forth here. CARICOM has a long way to go and many challenges to overcome if it is to have a viable economic union. While it has done well in the functional areas despite numerous exogenous and endogenous challenges, much more work remains if the Single Market is to function effectively and the Single Economy can finally come into force. The principle of CARICOM as a body of sovereign states is now archaic, and a new path forward is needed as CARICOM strives towards another fifty years. In an era besieged by heightened regionalism and lingering anthropogenic effects, the region needs to create a clear path towards economic integration. As the oldest integrative union in the South, CARICOM should be a leader and not be besieged by coloniality. Now is the time for CARICOM to decolonise/reform its organs, institutions, policies and priorities to centre it on Indigenous knowledges and non-Western standards and benchmarks. If not now, then when?

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Production integration, as an approach to economic integration in CARICOM, was first proposed by Brewster and Thomas (1967) as a complementary approach based on the ‘integration of trade and production’ rather than a pure market-driven approach. (Girvan, 2001). Production integration focuses on goods and to a lesser extent services through ‘industrial programming and an active role of the state; with much of the new activity being oriented to the regional market’ (Girvan, 2001, p. 8) emerged as the bedrock of the Original Treaty of Chaguaramas (CARICOM, 1973). However, the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (CARICOM, 2001) recirculates the concept of production integration within context of open regionalism so that CSME is focused on ‘ … increased production integration of goods, services and capital with the world economy’ (Girvan, 2001, p. 10). In fact, the Revised Treaty calls for the ‘structured integration of production in the Region’ to facilitate the ‘unrestricted movement of capital, labour and technology’ (CARICOM, 2001, para 7).

2. Rulings by the Caribbean Court of Justice have the potential to change the intergovernmental nature of CARICOM given its jurisdiction and its ability to create community laws see the case of Myrie v. The State of Barbados of 2013 where the Caribbean Court of Justice upheld the right of unfettered mobility across the region. The movement away from intergovernmentalism was recommend by the West Indian Commission (Ramphal, 1993) and reaffirmed in the Rose Hall Declaration.