The Inaugural Symposium on Current Developments in Caribbean Law in Trinidad and Tobago last week saw Leaders of Government and Opposition echoing calls for renewed commitment to the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).

Speakers featured at the opening session were David Thompson, prime minister of Barbados and Caricom Head of Government with portfolio of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME); Cuthbert Joseph of Trinidad and Tobago; Edwin Carrington, Caricom secretary general; Michael de la Bastide, president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ); Professor Nigel Harris, vice- chancellor of the University of the West Indies UWI); and Prof Winston Anderson, executive director of the Caribbean Law Institute Centre. The Symposium was organised by CLIC, the Caricom Secretariat and the CCJ with funding from the Ninth European Development Fund Caribbean Integration Support Programme.

Among the topics discussed over the three-day event were `Caribbean Integration and Trade: Hot-Button Issues’; `The Caribbean Legal System – Co-existence, Conflict or Convergence’; and `Capitalism and Governance: The Regulation of Competition within the Community’.

The final day saw discussion by a panel comprising former prime minister of Barbados Owen Arthur, Kenny Anthony former prime minister and current opposition leader of Saint Lucia, and Justice Duke Pollard of the CCJ. The panel discussion was chaired by Sir Shridath Ramphal, former Commonwealth secretary-general.

The panelists, who addressed the topic `Reflections, Progress and Challenges’, all concurred on moving ahead with the regional flagship programme.

Owen Arthur highlighted what he described as a pressing need to build confidence in the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) by making it matter more to the Region’s greatest resource; its people. Arthur made a stirring plea for the continued pursuit of the CSME as it was originally conceived. The Caricom Single Market was established in 2006 and the Single Economy is scheduled to come on stream in 2015.

Warning that there would be no “quick fixes”, Arthur said the Region must move forward with a clarity of purpose and firmness of political commitment and proceed in areas where there could be “an early harvest”. He described the CSME as the most imposing single endeavour ever contemplated by the Caribbean.

“It was never going to be easy,” the former prime minister acknowledged, adding that the impact and effects of the CSME were intended to be transformational. Not enough had been done, he lamented, to move the CSME as a legal entity to a lived entity.

Former prime minister Anthony acknowledged the positive steps taken within the context of the CSME that should serve to provide the Community with a sense of what is possible. For example, he saw an emerging sense of confidence about the intention of the CCJ with the Community beginning to see the Court as shaping the jurisprudence of the Region.

The positive steps such as the skilled certificate regime and travel arrangements indicated the promise and potential of what Heads of Government had envisioned, Anthony said.

The Symposium is planned as an annual forum for discussion of current or controversial developments in the law relating to or affecting the Caricom and its Member States.