THE governance of the Caribbean Community was the central issue of the 24th meeting of CARICOM’s Heads of Government in Montego Bay, Jamaica, held on July 1-4, this year.
CARICOM is not the only integration grouping that is wrestling with a problem of implementation. But this is little consolation to a public grown weary and cynical of repeated delays in completing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
There are two views about what lies at the root of the problem. The cynical view is that there is an absence of political will on the part of the governments and their leaders. At its most extreme, this view accuses the leaders of political disingenuousness. It holds that leaders announce decisions at CARICOM meetings for public and political consumption only, knowing that they will not-or cannot-implement them when they get back home.
But there is another view that stems from a close study of the CARICOM experience and its comparison with that of the European Union (EU). It will be recalled that it was the EU’s project for a Single Market that helped inspire the CARICOM decision.
This view holds that the problem lies in the methods and the structures that CARICOM set in place to bring about the CSME.
The method decided on was to amend the Treaty of Chaguaramas by a series of nine Protocols. Each of these is required to give effect to different aspects of the CSME. Each requires signature and ratification by CARICOM’s member states. And each requires legislation and administrative action in the member states for it to be effectively implemented.
A tall order indeed. According to a recent report coming out of the CSME unit based in Barbados, there are several hundred different actions required among the 14 member states. With a severe shortage of legal drafting skills, legislative time and administrative personnel, it is little wonder that most countries are way behind in the task.
Legal experts argue that there is an alternative. This calls for a Treaty agreement among CARICOM member states to set up a body with defined law-making powers for the Community as a whole. Decisions made in this way would have the status of `Community law’ with automatic applicability in the member states.
This is the route taken by the EU, after the first option was tried and found wanting. It involves a conscious decision to partially transfer the sovereignty of member states to a central body, such as the Community Council or a Community Commission. This is inherent in the process of integration itself.
The question of structure is linked to this. CARICOM is now served by a series of Ministerial Councils responsible for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR), Trade and Economic Development (COTED), Finance and Planning (COFAP) and Human and Social Development (COHSOD). Above these is the Community Council of Ministers. At the very apex of the structure is the Conference of Heads of Government.
These bodies are served by committees of government officials and supported by the CARICOM Secretariat. Their decisions are really recommendations to higher organs, which finally become recommendations to member states.
All this amounts to a federal structure in form but not in content. Government officials spend a great deal of their time preparing for CARICOM meetings, attending meetings and reporting on meetings. They are forced to divide the rest of their time between follow-up to CARICOM decisions and doing the regular work of their Ministries.
In effect, they are doing the work both of a community civil service and of a national civil service. As the workload expands, effective follow-up suffers.
This is why the idea of a CARICOM Commission empowered to implement Community decisions is now back on the table at this year’s summit. This model was rejected 10 years ago when the West Indian Commission first proposed it.
But times have changed, and the world has moved ahead. In 1993, it was Time for Action. Perhaps in 2003 it is too late for inaction.