By Ambassador Byron W. Blake
Byron W. Blake is Former Deputy Permanent Representative for Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda to the United Nations; Senior Economic Adviser to the 63rd President of the United Nations General Assembly; and Former Assistant Secretary General of the Caribbean Community.
The 51st Regular Meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Conference of Heads of Government was held in Saint Lucia from July 5 to July 8, 2026.
The Communiqué issued at the end of the Meeting is easily the most vacuous of any Communiqué issued by the Conference since its Inaugural Meeting in Saint Lucia in 1974. Except for the period from December 1975 to November 1982, the Conference has met in regular session in July every year; in 1990, by unanimous agreement, it convened in August.
The Conference has also convened in regular Special Session, circa February or roughly six months after the July Meeting for many years. When we write that the 2026 Meeting was the most vacuous, we include all these Meetings. One might wish to add extra Special Meetings like the April 1976 Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, which, inter alia, (i) adopted the Regional Food Plan, (ii) established the Caribbean Food Corporation, (iii) restructured the UWI-based Regional Research Centre and created the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) as an independent body from the University of the West Indies (UWI), (iv) transformed the then system of bilateral payments and settlements into a Multilateral Clearance Facility, and (v) established a novel Caribbean Balance of Payments Facility. (It was this Balance of Payments Facility concept that the Andean Group adopted to create CAF, the Andean Development Corporation. The difference in the fortunes of the two is that there were no calls on the CAF while Guyana and Jamaica were forced to access the CARICOM Facility immediately).
That Special Session finalised major regional actions in response to the challenges that confronted the Region after the first “Oil Shock” of 1973, and to the recognition in 1975 that the Regional Food Import Bill for 1974 had reached one billion Eastern Caribbean Dollars, or US$0.4 Billion. The leaders perceived those challenges as existential. They responded with the required urgency. In two sessions, its Second Regular Meeting in St. Kitts/Nevis in December 1975 and a Special Session in April 1976, it agreed and implemented those major initiatives with no delayed accessions.
Fast forward to 2025/2026. The Caribbean confronts multiple existential crises. These include:
1. Changes in global climate that breached the 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, the level scientifically agreed since 1995 to be the outer limit for sustainability. As a result of the extraordinary warming the Caribbean experienced two Category 5 hurricanes in sixteen months. Hurricane Melissa, the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, was in October 2025, well outside the time of any previous Atlantic hurricane. The 2024 Category 5 Beryl was the earliest on record. There is certainty that the rate of warming will accelerate. The only question is, how fast? In November 2025 at COP 30, in Brazil, the major polluters forced a reversal of the 30-year-old United Nations decision that was incorporated into the decision of COP 29, to commit to constraining their CO2 emissions. Further, 2026 has been experiencing one of the strongest El Niños.
2. An undeclared war in the Gulf between the United States of America and Iran that has disrupted supply chains and crippled global trade, not only in petroleum products but also in some critical agricultural and industrial inputs.This new war adds to the long-running war between Russia and Ukraine. One effect is high and fluctuating prices.
3. The militarisation and nuclearization of the Caribbean Sea with unpredictable implications, especially for the regional cruise tourism, yachting and fishing industries. The United States is actively strangling the Cuban people, and its long-declared objective of regime change add multiple layers of uncertainty for Caribbean development.
4. An international order dislodged from its post-World War II moorings, adding great uncertainty, especially for small, externally-dependent states such as those in the Caribbean.
5. A high-technology-driven world propelled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), big money, and a surfeit of information. Someone is shaping rules, and the Caribbean is not at the table. And are we training our children to participate in that new world?
6. Individual Caribbean states coming under increasing asymmetrical pressure from friendly states and groups for favours beyond their capacities or inimical to their national interest.
In addition, CARICOM itself confronts three internal challenges, namely:
(i) A woeful backlog in the implementation of agreed decisions, leading to disenchantment and even disillusionment among segments of the populations, including the youths.
(ii) Members entering arrangements of convenience without regard to the implications for their fellow member states, practice or even treaty obligations; and
(iii) An unsettled and publicly known dispute about the appointment of its CEO.
At no time in its fifty-three-year history has the integration movement faced such a barrage of issues. In fact, not even in the decade of the 1980s, with the second oil crisis of 1979, the Grenada Crisis of 1983, the Structural Adjustment doctrine of the mid-1980s, the heyday of parties adhering to the Socialist International Movement and the Democratic Union in the 1980’s, and the sustained campaign by the United States and others in the GATT against its access to the European Union (EU) under the negotiated, GATT approved Lome Convention, was the pressure as vital to Caribbean survival.
It is in that context that the substantially inconsequential Agenda for and outcome of the 51st Meeting of the Heads of Government must be assessed.
Were these issues on the agenda and what were the outcomes?
1. Global Climate Change
… reaffirmed that limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and the recognition and protection of the special circumstances of SIDS remain the central objectives across all major negotiating streams for COP 31 to be held in Antalya, Turkey in November 2026.
There was no mention of Hurricane Melissa, the cost of the damage sustained by the Jamaican people, or reparation for such damage. According to the Conference Agenda, Hurricane Melissa has never happened.
The idea of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is now a historical impossibility. And further, CARICOM members are going to Turkey, a major fossil fuel-producing country, to a meeting chaired by Australia, a major coal-producing country, that had betrayed the Pacific SIDS by voluntarily giving away the opportunity to co-host the COP with them.
2. Undeclared War in the Gulf between the United States of America and Iran
… noted that rising prices were dominant consumer concerns, and that inflation, driven by global shocks, including geopolitical events, was also affecting energy and supply chains.
… noted the regional food security response matrix outlining regional strategic implications and coping strategies due to the war in the Middle East. (Our emphasis)
3. Backlog in the implementation of agreed decisions.
… welcomed notification from Grenada and Saint Lucia that they are actively taking steps to participate in full free movement of CARICOM nationals. (Our emphasis)
… welcomed Montserrat’s indication that it is preparing to take necessary actions to accede to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. (Our emphasis)
… noted the regional food security response matrix outlining regional strategic implications and coping strategies due to the war in the Middle East.
4. Militarisation and Nuclearization of the Caribbean Sea
… noted the recent developments in Cuba and expressed deep concern regarding the unfolding humanitarian crisis affecting the Cuban people. They agreed that CARICOM will continue its coordinated efforts to provide humanitarian support to the people of Cuba.
There was no comment on the threat of escalated military action in the Caribbean.
5. Internal Issues
Reappointment of the Secretary General
… agreed that the Community would immediately commence proceedings to secure the advisory opinion by way of an application to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) by the Community, in accordance with Article 212 of the Revised Treaty. (Our emphasis).
This issue threatens the functioning of the Institution. It is time-sensitive. It arose from a decision at the Conference in February. And there was a recommendation not long after that this was the most appropriate line of action. Yet Heads waited for the formal meeting – when it could have reached that position in a virtual meeting – and came to Conference to announce that the matter had been referred to the CCJ.
Do these “decisions” seem meaningful in the context of the existential challenges identified? Or do they seem trivial? And if trivial, the question is why?
Could it be ignorance? Hardly likely. Could it be fear? That would seem to be the plausible answer, but that would be out of character with former times when CARICOM leaders faced major challenges. Then, they confronted the challenges in unity. In 1972, before CARICOM, the four Independent States of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago stared down the mighty United States and established formal relations with Cuba. That action gave courage to many larger nations.
We give one other example. In 1974/75, CARICOM, with the same four Independent Members, faced the challenge of losing the Commonwealth preferences, the arrangement under which its major exports- sugar, bananas, rum- entered the United Kingdom (UK) market. The UK had joined the European Economic Community (EEC) and could neither give nor receive preferences that were not available to the other Members of the Community. That would be a gift to the other European Community. CARICOM baulked. The four independent states decided to take the fight to the European Community under the CARICOM umbrella. The non-independent members gave up their right to join the UK and stuck with their CARICOM partners. CARICOM convinced the African States to abandon their existing arrangements with the EEC and also the Pacific Islands to join them to form the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group to negotiate as one with the EEC. The result was the novel Lomé Convention, which was not only approved by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) but accepted by the international Community as the model for trade agreements between developed and developing countries.
That is the history of courage which current CARICOM leaders have inherited. The 51st Meeting of the Conference had the additional fortune of all members, except one, being represented at the highest level. It is that CARICOM Conference that cowered.
The 51st Meeting of the Conference was a colossal failure in the face of existential challenges. That opportunity has gone. Nothing can be done to change that. But the challenges remain, and some have deepened. We urge our leaders to sharpen up on the history and shoulders on which they stand. Grasp the shield of unity and step forward to confront the challenges head-on.
Caribbean people have learnt from bitter experience that bullies and exploiters are never satisfied. They cannot be assuaged. They have struggled to build an identity and a civilization. They will stand with you to defend it.
Discussion