This time Amnesty is involved in sharp verbal exchanges with the administration of Prime Minister P.J. Patterson in Jamaica following the presentation of the incumbent People's National Party's manifesto for next month's general election.

The row actually flared up before Sunday night's announcement by Patterson that general election will take place on October 16.

Before then not just Patterson's PNP, but also its principal rival for power, Edward Seaga's Jamaica Labour Party, had made clear a firm commitment to push ahead with arrangements for implementing the death penalty for murder.

To Amnesty, which internationally campaigns against the death penalty, and has been previously critical of Caribbean governments for maintaining a hanging policy for convicted murderers, this was like waving a red flag.

Not surprisingly, therefore, it came out swinging against the Jamaica Government, even resorting to a surprisingly emotional outburst about the PNP virtually "offering to kill for votes".

This was in reference to the manifesto pledge to get on with the business of hanging of convicted murderers.

This kind of response was just too much for the Attorney General of Jamaica, A.J. Nicholson, who lost no time in angrily declaring to Amnesty that it should understand that it was not "a supra-national government entity such as the United Nations" to direct his country on the death penalty.

Nicholson referred to other CARICOM states, among them Barbados, that are also taking steps to ensure the implementation of laws for the hanging of convicted murderers.

Previously, Amnesty had clashed with the government in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, officials of which had claimed misrepresentations and bias by the human rights body in references to their respective stand on the death penalty.

Apart from the position often adopted by governments of the region that they are simply enforcing laws, in accordance with their respective country's constitution on the death penalty, one very unfortunate fallout from the controversy involving Amnesty and the anti-capital punishment lobby, is the negative comments against plans for the proposed Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

Whatever may be the reservations that some have about such a regional appellate institution, it is rather insensitive to make it out as a "hanging court", especially when related to decisions upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London that remains the final court of appeal for all member countries of CARICOM, other than Guyana.

The CCJ is of paramount importance to the emerging Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).