Editorial | Jamaica can take trade claims to CCJ

It has long been a matter of puzzlement for this newspaper that despite their perennial complaints of barriers to their goods and services in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and dissatisfaction with the rulings of CARICOM’s bodies, Jamaica’s firms and business organisations have not sought definitive resolutions at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

Perhaps they should. Like Shanique Myrie, who, nearly a decade ago, insisted on her right, as a citizen of CARICOM, to hassle-free movement within the community. A possible first case is the dispute over the duty-free eligibility of Jamaican soap exported to the region, assuming Jamaica’s Government, and the firms at the centre of the quarrel, remain confident about their arguments, which were recently rejected by CARICOM’s Council on Trade and Economic Development (COTED).

CARICOM, an organisation of 15 Caribbean countries, 14 of which (The Bahamas participates only in its functional cooperation schemes) are members of single-market arrangements aimed, ultimately, at creating a seamless economic space. Generally, for goods manufactured in one country to be exported tariff-free to other member states, the products have to meet a value-added criteria of at least 60 per cent, made up solely of inputs from the exporting country, or from a combination of CARICOM states.

Current Dispute

In the current dispute, Jamaican soap manufacturers import their soap noodles (sodium salt extracted from the fatty acids from oils and fats, to which manufacturers add their particular ingredients to produce their specific soaps) from outside the region. A year ago, a firm in the Eastern Caribbean island of Dominica, which is CARICOM’’s sole manufacturer of the product, complained that the use by Jamaican manufacturers of extra-regional soap noodles breached the community’s rule-of-origin criteria. Their finished products, therefore, should attract CARICOM’s common external tariff of 40 per cent.

Part of the argument, apparently, was that the stage at which the Jamaican firms acquired soap noodles was closer to a finished product, placing them in a different customs classification than the raw material imported by the Dominican firm, notwithstanding that both came from the same or similar sources in Indonesia. But the Jamaican manufacturers also complained about the quality of the noodles manufactured in Dominica.

In late November, after a year of toing and froing, COTED, which requires a 75 per cent vote to carry its decisions, ruled in favour of the Dominicans. Jamaican business officials, however, continue to insist that CARICOM’s rules are not even-handedly applied. We suppose that CARICOM member states can easily align their interests, such as, say, the seven members of the regional subgroup – the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, of which Dominica is one of the members – voting as a bloc.

No such influences, however, would come to bear on the CCJ. Neither its original jurisdiction to “hear and determine disputes concerning the interpretation and application of the treaty”, nor its role as the final court on civil and criminal matters for some CARICOM states. Indeed, the CCJ, on both counts, has proved itself a court of jurisprudential excellence.

Disagreements with a decision by COTED, on the face of it, fall within the realm of disputes “concerning the interpretation and application” of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs CARICOM. Moreover, the complaining Jamaican entities clearly meet the definition of “persons, natural or juridical, of a Contracting Party” who may, with the special leave of the court, be party to proceedings before the CCJ.

While CARICOM is yet to deliver the economic breakthrough for which the region hopes, it remains, we hold, an important tool for the Caribbean’s development. Indeed, the expanding trend towards regional integration movements underlines the logic of conglomeration. But for CARICOM to be effective, it has to be a rules-based institution in which its members trust. That is why mechanisms like the CCJ ought to be used and their worth tested.