TT: Does one from ten still leave none?

UNITARY statehood among Caricom member states is said to be the best constitutional option for the region, but is one which will be least acceptable.

"The island territories of the Caribbean have had too long a colonial history of administrative separateness to make unitary statehood a constitutional possibility. A more acceptable constitutional option will be a federal union," a paper on the subject, prepared by Trinidadian Dr Cuthbert Joseph has argued.

But it argues, nevertheless, that the model most likely to be accepted by the region's leaders and its peoples will be a confederal arrangement.

This is the option which "may have a strong appeal to many governments," the paper says, adding that "in spite of three decades of the Caricom experience, member states have not yet satisfied the rudimentary requirements of the harmonisation of legislation governing public policy and fiscal and other incentives to industry, agriculture, fishing and tourism.

"Moreover, in this disharmonious economic environment, many states have ignored their obligations to co-ordinate their foreign policies against the outside world. The stark result is that Caricom members have been presenting disjointed diplomatic, political and economic fronts against the outside world," the paper has argued. It said this was so outside of bloc voting in such international institutions as the United Nations and the Organisation of American States.

This disjointed foreign policy picture is notably evident in bilateral and multilateral relations between individual Caribbean states and foreign states such as China and Taiwan, the paper noted....

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