Mahogany CoConut Blog

One Caribbean Nation. A New World Order – or the formal admission of the Old? The world has long spoken of a "rulesbased order", as though the law itself held dominion over power. Yet, behind the diplomatic courtesies and the fine print of charters, it was power that wrote the rules and altered them at will. The difference today is that the altering is done in full view and only a few feign surprise. We all knew what the Order was, even when we hoped for better. We knew it in World Trade Organisation negotiations when our cries for special and differential treatment for small states in trade relations fell on deaf ears. We knew it in climate change negotiations when our pleas for a loss and damage fund evinced a sop, not a solution. From the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 to the Charter of the United Nations in 1945, the international system has proclaimed the sovereign equality of states. In practice, this has always been more aspiration than achievement. Legal sovereignty -...

One Caribbean Nation. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated, the need for regional governments, to act as one force, when there are such crises. The scramble for desperately needed vaccines, has exposed the vulnerabilities of our island states. We need each other now “more than ever”. The region's largely based tourism economies, have been savaged and we suggest that full recovery, will in some cases , take a decade. Some leaders are pretending that they were unaware that the fragile nature of their economies, and often strained relations with others, would have exposed how naked we all are, when confronted by unexpected and economically devastating shocks. While we support all regional governments in their gallant battles against the deadly virus; we are nevertheless certain that a progressive, functioning, one Caribbean nation, would have better battled the challenges. We note, with great admiration how the nation of Cuba, is confronting the pandemic with its own...