CARICOM as a mechanism for regional security cooperation

Security cooperation within the Caribbean as well as externally, with countries such as the US, is pursued through CARICOM. CARICOM was established in 1973 under the Treaty of Chaguaramas. It includes 20 countries: 15 member statesFootnote ¹³ and 5 associate members.Footnote ¹⁴ Economic integration, foreign policy coordination, human and social development, and security are CARICOM’s main priority areas.Footnote ¹⁵ Following the collapse of the 1958 West Indies Federation, CARICOM was envisioned as an economic union. The failed West Indies Federation was established by Britain’s colonial office as the basis for granting independence in the Caribbean.Footnote ¹⁶ After both Jamaica (following a referendum) and Trinidad pulled out, the Federation effectively collapsed. The establishment of CARICOM was meant to provide an institutional and political mechanism for regional integration, addressing the viability and survival of Caribbean economies, given their small size and associated vulnerabilities.Footnote ¹⁷

Given increases in violence and transnational organised crime across the region, security was adopted as the fourth pillar of CARICOM in 2007 by the heads of government at the Eighteenth Inter-Sessional Meeting. CARICOM’s Strategic Plan for 2015–2019 also signals the importance of security in the region, identifying eight areas for immediate focus. These include pursuing functional cooperative security engagements to manage shared risks and threats, enhancing human resource capabilities, strengthening regional security systems, and improving border security and maritime and airspace awareness.Footnote ¹⁸ CARICOM’s third Strategic Plan 2022–2030 focuses on the issue of transnational organised crime, violence reduction, the intersection of citizen and state security, and the need to deepen functional cooperation in order to strengthen enforcement and implementation.Footnote ¹⁹

Institutions have been established to implement these plans and strategies. CARICOM developed a Regional Task Force on Crime and Security in 2001 and an Implementing Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) in 2006, which reports to the Council of Ministers and National Law Enforcement. IMPACS has responsibility for ‘the implementation of the regional crime and security agenda and a collective response to the crime and security priorities of Member States’.Footnote ²⁰ The Joint Regional Communications System and the Regional Fusion Centre, which focus on intelligence, were also established as part of this implementation mechanism. In 2019, CARICOM adopted the Caribbean Firearms Trafficking Priority Actions, and in 2022 it formed a Caribbean Crime Gun Intelligence Unit (CGIU). CARICOM also has a Ministerial Council for National Security and Law Enforcement (CONSLE), a Regional Security System (RSS) which provides training and a collective response mechanism for the smaller Organization of Eastern Caribbean (OECS) countries, the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), and the Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council (CCLEC).

The development of these institutions has been accompanied by increases in national budget allocations to security and attempts to reduce reliance on external funding. In Jamaica, for example, security spending amounts to approximately 20 per cent of the national budget, most of which is allocated to the police.Footnote ²¹ In Trinidad, the national security budget has also increased, with the police being allocated 43 per cent of this.Footnote ²² With higher spending, the region has faced growing pressure to reduce insecurity and gun violence and move towards more effective models of security cooperation.

Cooperation models: Towards an assertive South–South security cooperation model

We propose three main models to analyse how cooperation has been approached in CARICOM and the shift that is being attempted. These models also shed light on political strategies and considerations. They are the facilitative, ameliorative, and assertive models of cooperation. In the first model, CARICOM plays the role of facilitator, bringing together diverse political actors in pursuit of a solution to a security challenge originating outside its immediate borders. The security challenge in question has implications for CARICOM’s security but is not perceived as an imminent threat by its nationals. The risks mainly involve spillover effects such as illegal immigration and long-term concerns with transference of threats. As facilitator, CARICOM does not extend its own resources but instead relies on resource mobilisation – financial, military, and technical – mostly from external sources. The main example of this is the case of CARICOM’s efforts to assist Haiti, one of its member states, which has suffered from major political instability owing to a surge in gang violence following the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, in 2021. The gang problem in Haiti has implications for stability in the region, and Haitians seeking to escape the violence unleashed by gangs have attempted to move to countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados. CARICOM has been central in the negotiations regarding the establishment of a Transnational Council to oversee the transfer of power and elections in Haiti. Lacking in military and police capacity to assist Haiti’s efforts to achieve political stability, CARICOM has also spearheaded an agreement with Kenya to lead a police intervention, with a funding pledge from the US and Canada of approximately 300 million US dollars.Footnote ²³ Kenya is seen as a politically acceptable country for this kind of intervention. In 2024, Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, participated in a CARICOM high-level meeting on Haiti, held in Jamaica, which aimed at expediting the Multi-national Security Support mission deployment in Haiti and Haiti’s political transition.

In the second ameliorative model, CARICOM cooperates with the strategy of a more powerful actor to address a perceived direct regional threat, opting for a collaborative approach rather than an assertive or confrontational stance. CARICOM uses this model to compensate for weakness in military capabilities and the capacity to absorb any retaliatory action. In this model, CARICOM does not initiate cooperation but is instead reactive to the actions of the more powerful country. One of the best examples of this is US/CARICOM cooperation in the signing of the Shiprider agreement,Footnote ²⁴ on the United States’ terms, to address the problem of drug trafficking. This agreement gave the US the authority to search vessels in the Caribbean Sea. The use of the ameliorative model in this case involved sacrificing the sovereignty of CARICOM countries to appease the US.

The third model is a more assertive one, where CARICOM is signalling an intention to adjust its cooperation strategy to reflect its own priorities. This kind of cooperation is used in cases where other methods of cooperation have been exhausted or where it involves a decision to challenge a more powerful country to change its cooperation strategy. This is a model best pursued through SSSC. The best example of this is the recent declaration (examined in this article) by CARICOM to engage in a ‘war on guns’ and join Mexico in their lawsuit against US gun manufacturers and dealers. Mexico brings resources, political clout, and other ingredients for success. Although this is an assertive model, it is also in some sense non-confrontational, as it seeks to avoid a direct clash with the American political elite by using the courts to pursue action against gun manufacturers rather than against the American state itself. Assertive models of security usually generate tension with more powerful countries. While there are tensions around the main points of divergence, in this case violence and guns, there is also convergence on specific security issues (see Table 1).

Table 1. Points of divergence and convergence in US–Caribbean security cooperation.

Assertive security cooperation models also tend to arise out of crisis and where opportunities exist to join with more powerful actors. Violence and guns pose real threats to CARICOM citizens and constitute a crisis for regional governments. The threat from violence and guns, as an objective reality, is supported by various studies and data (see LAPOP, for example).Footnote ²⁵ These studies indicate that it is not just governments, but Caribbean peoples across the region, who have consistently regarded violent crimes as either the number one or number two policy priority. Gun violence also put immense stress on the rule of law. The Jamaican state, for example, has resorted to the persistent use of states of emergency to solve the problem of gang and gun violence.Footnote ²⁶ In 2016, a majority of Jamaican citizens reported that they would be willing to tolerate a military government if it solved the problem of violence.Footnote ²⁷ These developments have triggered a shift towards a new and more assertive model of cooperation, an SSSC model.

The United States’ hegemony and priority-setting role in the Caribbean

US security relations in the region have been largely an ebb and flow of hegemonic control, insularity, and cooperation.Footnote ²⁸ US security cooperation priorities in the Caribbean are largely defined by both its foreign policy and domestic politics. This matters for understanding the grounds for SSSC between CARICOM and Mexico and why CARICOM has opted for this particular strategy. Historically, the US has taken a realist stance, engaging in policies that support its rational self-interest for geostrategic security and political hegemony. Consequently, US–Caribbean relationship can be best understood through the paradigms of hegemonic control and the pursuit of rational self-interest.Footnote ²⁹ In this view, security means preservation of a state’s national security goals and its pursuit of power.Footnote ³⁰ The US, as the hegemonic actor in the region, has prioritised its own border security and national interests above those of its neighbours, largely determining the terms of security cooperation. This dates back to the Protectorate era (1898–1933), when the US was mainly concerned with protecting the region from continued European imperialism. Thereafter, the Good Neighbour policy (1933–53) was enacted by the US to support political and economic stability in the region.Footnote ³¹

From 1953 to 1990, the Cold War era, the US engaged in intense ideological and security based foreign policy strategies to counter the spread of communism and promote democracy and democratisation.Footnote ³² During this period, the US engaged in several military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-led covert operations across the region to further its security and geopolitical interests. Several countries were affected by the United States’ anti-communist foreign policy, among them, Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Grenada in 1983.Footnote ³³ The US developed a realist outlook on the Americas (inclusive of the Caribbean), which it considered to be its ‘backyard’.Footnote ³⁴ This also resulted in the US engaging in military interventions in Haiti during 1915–34, and economic policies such as the current trade and financial embargo against Cuba from 1962. The US has continuously signalled its rational self-interest position to maintain its hegemony in the region.Footnote ³⁵

From the late 1970s into the 1990s, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the focus of US foreign policy in the Caribbean and Latin America shifted towards the fight against the narcotic trade of marijuana and cocaine, the latter originating from the Andean region in South America, trans-shipped through the Caribbean and then sold to consumers in the US.Footnote ³⁶ The war on drugs policy has been a top priority of the US and the anchor for security cooperation and bilateral arrangements with Mexico and CARICOM countries. The security challenge of drug trafficking from South America through the Caribbean Corridor into North America is viewed as a national security threat to the US, resulting in several militaristic, diplomatic, and covert intelligence operations to wage a war against drugs and drug trafficking organisations. Policies such as the Shiprider Agreement, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), and the Mérida Initiative are examples of the United States’ counter-narcotics strategies in the region.Footnote ³⁷ Under these agreements, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have diverted resources and developed police units to support the US-led war on drugs.

The 1997 US-initiated Shiprider agreement with CARICOM effectively gave the US the right to police and search vessels in the Caribbean Sea on its own terms.Footnote ³⁸ Jamaica and Barbados showed determination in rejecting this agreement with the US.Footnote ³⁹ Their main concern was the dangerous precedent in matters of sovereignty and territorial integrity that this agreement would occasion. In the end, the agreement was signed between CARICOM and the US, without serious focus on Caribbean priorities, including anti-gun-smuggling. Following this, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) was established in 2010 between the US and CARICOM, and, again, with primary focus on drug trafficking.Footnote ⁴⁰ Under the CBSI, the US spends about USD$70 million annually on ‘maritime domain awareness’ and interdiction, radar coverage, sharing capacity, enhanced port security, equipment, and training.Footnote ⁴¹

In the case of Mexico, the Mérida Initiative is the main security cooperation agreement between Mexico, Central America, and the US, focusing mainly on capacity building through training, intelligence, and equipment to support the war on drugs. While the initiative can be credited with pursuing leaders of major drug trafficking organisations (DTO), other DTO leaders usually emerge to replace them, and the impact on violence is minimal.Footnote ⁴² Moreover, accusations of human rights abuses, including torture, and increasing threats to the rule of law under a militarised approach to the war on drugs, have affected the achievement of sustained reductions in violence and drug trafficking. Mexican politicians, including former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have criticised and called for an end to the Mérida Initiative and the war on drugs for its inattention to Mexican priorities and needs, and its tendency towards militarisation.Footnote ⁴³

Despite ongoing efforts in the war on drugs, Latin America and the Caribbean continue to face significant security challenges, and the war on drugs has been perceived as a failure or as a partial success, at best. Success has been mainly measured by cocaine seizures, failing to account for other expected benefits such as a reduction in violence. The war on drugs has instead been associated with rising, steady gun violence in the Caribbean, over five decades in the case of Jamaica and at least two decades for several other CARICOM countries including Saint Kitts, Saint Vincent, Belize, Trinidad, and Saint Lucia.

From the war on drugs to the war on guns

The US-driven war on drugs has for many decades eclipsed major challenges with gun trafficking, relegating it to near obscurity. As early as the 1970s and 1980s, there were instances of illegal transborder firearm transfers in Antigua and Barbuda and Jamaica. The former was a subject of a Commission of Enquiry and involved transfers from Israel to criminal gangs in Colombia that were corruptly facilitated by high state officials.Footnote ⁴⁴ And in the case of Jamaica, there were alleged transfers from Cuba and the US to the ruling and opposition parties, respectively. Around 500 political killings occurred in Jamaica in 1980. Still, the gun-trafficking problem was subordinated to the drug-trafficking challenge. One obvious explanation for this is the priority-setting role of the US as the hegemon in the region. Another related point is that violence in the region was framed as a function of the drug problem. With a drastic reduction in political violence in the 1990s and the rise of drug lordsFootnote ⁴⁵ and prominent gangs who used earnings from the drug trade to increase their power relative to that of politicians, the prioritisation of drugs seemed reasonable. Despite an increase in gang violence, gun trafficking was seen as a more indirect factor. Solving the drug problem was expected to solve the violence problem and related issues, including the problem of gun trafficking. Thus, the war on drugs became the dominant framework for regional security cooperation. It came to be seen by practitioners, and academics alike, as the main threat to democracy and sovereignty.Footnote ⁴⁶

This focus on the war on drugs, as argued by CARICOM countries, led to a neglect of the flow of guns from the US to Latin America and the Caribbean, which is responsible for over 70 per cent of homicides. As noted, this is a major problem for the Caribbean, which is facing a crisis of violent crimes and gun violence. This can be seen in high homicide rates in countries like Jamaica ( 53 per 100,000), Trinidad and Tobago (39 per 100,000), the Bahamas (31 per 100,000), Saint Lucia (27 per 100,000), and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (40 per 100,000).Footnote ⁴⁷ These all represent higher rates than the global average of 6 per 100,000. Gun homicides are also high in the Caribbean region, especially in high-violence countries. In the Bahamas, gun violence amounts to over 75 per cent; in Jamaica, over 80 per cent; and in Barbados, over 60 per cent.Footnote ⁴⁸

Recent data on firearms movement from the US to the LAC region underscores the significant challenges of violence, chaos, and devastation that these weapons have caused within communities across these countries. illustrates the percentage of US sourced guns which end up in several Caribbean countries.Footnote ⁴⁹

The evidence is clear that democracy and state stability in Mexico, the Caribbean, and the wider LAC region are being threatened by the illicit weapons flows. These weapons empower gangs, challenge state security and law enforcement, and enable violent non-state actors to rival the legitimacy and power of governments.Footnote ⁵⁵ They are also facilitating extra-legal violenceFootnote ⁵⁶ and high levels of fear among citizens. Additionally, research indicates that there is an association between levels of life expectancy and gun-related homicides in the LAC region.Footnote ⁵⁷ Consequently, Mexico and its CARICOM neighbours have a strong case in their efforts to lobby the US to wage a war on guns.

South–South cooperation and Mexico’s legal challenge

Mexico’s tortious lawsuit against American gun manufacturers marks the first time that a foreign government has sued the US gun industry.Footnote ⁵⁸ Tort law aims to provide relief to those parties who have been injured by the actions of others and also imposes liability on those parties who cause such harm. It also functions as a deterrent to those who may commit harmful acts.Footnote ⁵⁹ Torts can be intentional, where they are based on the wilful misconduct of others,Footnote ⁶⁰ or strict liability, where those involved in abnormally dangerous activities or manufacture defective products can be held liable.Footnote ⁶¹ Negligence is another type of tort. Here, a person’s actions, or failure to act, can be deemed negligent if they fail to act with the level of care that a reasonable person under the same circumstances would have observed.Footnote ⁶² To bring a cause of action for negligence, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant owed them a duty or standard of care as recognised by law, that there was a breach of that duty, and that harm was proximately caused to the plaintiff as a result of that breach.Footnote ⁶³

In Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.,Footnote ⁶⁴ the plaintiff, Estados Unidos Mexicanos (Government of Mexico) brought a suit against several US-based weapon manufacturers whose guns are most often recovered in Mexico. These comprise Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Century Arms, Colt, Glock, and Ruger. Barrett, which produces a sniper rifle that is very popular among drug cartels, as well as Interstate Arms, a Boston-area wholesaler which the majority of the manufacturers use for resale of their guns throughout the United States, were also included. In its suit, Mexico sought relief for several claims of negligence, arguing that the defendants ‘have legal duties to distribute their guns safely and avoid criminals in Mexico’.Footnote ⁶⁵ Mexico also argued that the defendants are legally bound to follow the gun-import and tort laws of Mexico, as well as the companion applicable federal and state tort laws in the United States. In its complaint, Mexico painted a dire picture of the trilateral relationship between guns, drug trafficking, and illegal migration. It alleges that 70–90 per cent of all guns recovered from Mexican crime scenes are trafficked from the United States, and that drug cartels who possess these weapons engage in the nefarious drug trade, as they aggressively market drugs such as fentanyl. The resultant violence has caused many persons to fear and flee for their lives, leading to an influx of migrants, with some Mexicans internally displaced, or making the treacherous journey to destinations like the United States. This is particularly vexing for Mexico, since it has very strict gun laws, and only one gun store operates in the country. This gun store issues fewer than 50 gun permits each year, yet Mexico has seen an astronomical spike in gun-related homicides, rising from fewer than 2,500 in 2003, to more than 3.9 million in 2019.Footnote ⁶⁶

Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. is important in many respects. It is, for instance, the first time that corporate responsibilityFootnote ⁶⁷ has been included in efforts to combat arms trafficking.Footnote ⁶⁸ Adding this dynamic to this lawsuit is therefore noteworthy in that if the judgement should go in Mexico’s favour, gun manufacturers will have to pay closer attention to how their arms are distributed, and the reasonable, foreseeable consequences that may follow this distribution within society. Thirteen US states have signalled through their attorneys general that they are backing Mexico.Footnote ⁶⁹ Mexico’s complaint is therefore unprecedented in that it simultaneously invokes legal recourse in American courts from a foreign government while calling for greater corporate social responsibility from American gun manufacturers. This marks a paradigmatic shift in how the issue has been normally approached. The aim of the lawsuit is to reduce access to US manufactured weapons and crimes committed through their use.

Mexico’s original complaint was struck down by Chief Judge Dennis Saylor, who argued in his judgement that US laws allow gun manufacturers to have immunity from liability in the event that their weapons are used illegally by criminals. Central to Mexico’s arguments was the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), an Act of Congress which was passed in 2005. PLCAA prohibits ‘civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others’.Footnote ⁷⁰ Mexico reasoned that there were exceptions to this Act, and so its challenge should hold. The court held, however, that Mexico’s presumption of the extraterritoriality of the Act did not apply because it attempted to hold the gun manufacturers and wholesaler responsible for actions that occurred in the United States and not Mexico. The court also reasoned that the counts for negligence and other violations that Mexico argued were covered under common law and not statutory law. They therefore did not meet the exceptions as delineated in PLCAA, 15 U.S.C.S. § 7903(5)(A)(iii). Additionally, because Mexico did not allege that any of the manufacturers were the de facto sellers, the exception for negligence per se as outlined in § 7903(5)(A)(ii) would not apply. In essence, even though the PLCAA provides for certain exceptions in which claims can be brought against gun manufacturers, the court held that based on the arguments presented by Mexico, they did not apply to its complaint.Footnote ⁷¹ Mexico appealed the decision. On 22 January 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit sided with Mexico. It held that the dismissal of the case was improper because the claim that Mexico alleges is a plausible statutory exemption from the general prohibition against gun manufacturers and sellers under 5 U.S.C.S. §§ 7902(a) and 7903(5)(A). The court also found that Mexico made an adequate allegation against the defendants for knowingly aiding and abetting the ‘unlawful downstream trafficking of their guns into Mexico’. Judge Saylor’s decision was therefore reversed, and the matter remanded to the lower court.Footnote ⁷² This is therefore a positive and hallmark judicial decision that has important implications for the trajectory of the case. In addition to this early victory in the American courts, Mexico has also brought a second case in an Arizona Federal Court against gun distributors and gun shops.Footnote ⁷³ This shows intentionality on Mexico’s part as it seeks to not only curtail the selling and smuggling of guns into its territory, but to also hold gun distributors accountable for negligence through judicial relief in American courts.

To get a better understanding of the context for this lawsuit and the subsequent calls for a war on guns policy, it is important to retrace the US–Mexico anti-gun-trafficking policies. The history of gun-control between the US and Mexico illustrates the divergent national security priorities and interests of the two countries. The former’s approach to gun control is more laisser-faire, with a strong gun-possession culture among its citizens, supported by the second constitutional amendment.Footnote ⁷⁴

A central difference between US and Mexican gun laws is the way each country structures its weapons administration. In Mexico, gun laws are much more restrictive than in the US. Gun laws are enacted at a federal level, giving limited autonomy to individual states within the Mexican Federation. Conversely, in the US, gun laws are primarily managed by individual states, and the federal government has limited powers and reach. In 2004, the US government removed its Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB). This policy shift resulted in an increase in the trafficking of assault firearms, which are used frequently by drug-based cartels in the perpetration of homicides, kidnappings, extortion rackets, and other violent crimes. Firearms coming from the US, including handguns and AR-15 and AK-47 assault weapons, are the main implements used by these organised criminal organisations.Footnote ⁷⁵

Most guns tracked to the US from Mexico come from one of the four border states with Mexico: Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.Footnote ⁷⁶ Since 2004, firearms trafficking into Mexico has added to the nation’s rising violence.Footnote ⁷⁷ A high percentage of the violence committed on the Mexican side of the border is carried out by the nation’s drug-based cartels. From 2007 to 2012, over 47,000 homicides took place in Mexico by drug trafficking cartels locked in a vicious war for control of the profitable drug trade which flows to consumers in the US. During the period from 2007 to 2011, nearly 70 per cent of the 99,691 firearms seized from violent crimes in Mexico and subsequently submitted for tracing to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) originated from US manufacturers or were acquired through US dealers.Footnote ⁷⁸ Additional data from the ATF indicates that between 2017 and 2022, nearly 124,000 guns were retrieved at crime scenes in Mexico. These were subsequently traced, and 68 per cent of those guns (approximately 83,000) came from the United States.Footnote ⁷⁹ In 2023, the US Customs and Border Protection agency intercepted 1,171 guns prior to them being trafficked into Mexico. This is significantly higher than the 173 guns intercepted in 2019.Footnote ⁸⁰ The data is overwhelming; violence in Mexico is strongly associated with the trafficking of weapons from the US.Footnote ⁸¹

The strategies used by the US and Mexico to counter the illicit flow of firearms across the southern border often lead to these very firearms ending up in the hands of drug-based cartels and other criminal syndicates. These strategies have been extremely US-centric and have proven largely ineffective. Take, for example, the US initiated gun-tracing programme, Fast and Furious, which was administered by the ATF between 2009 and 2011. The programme was intended to track illegal firearms traffickers operating between the United States and Mexico. The operation involved allowing straw purchasers to buy weapons illegally in the United States with the intention of tracing them to Mexican drug cartels. However, the operation quickly spiralled out of control, with many of the guns lost or unaccounted for, and some later found at crime scenes, including the murder of a US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.Footnote ⁸²

The power imbalance between Mexico and the US has greatly hindered attempts to curb the illicit trafficking of firearms across their shared border. So too their divergent gun laws and policies, spanning from manufacturing regulations to possession rights, create substantial challenges in achieving effective collaboration to combat gun smuggling. Mexico, over the years, has had to grapple with an American ‘iron triangle’Footnote ⁸³ comprising of gun rights lobby groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America (GOA), bureaucracies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that regulate firearms usage, and congressional subcommittees such as the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. This, in turn, affects the relative success that interest groups have in making sure that they elect congressional representatives who are sympathetic to their causes. When Congress passes bills, these are sent to bureaucracies for implementation. These laws are often vague, and it is up to the bureaucracies to use their discretionary power, consistent with the provisions of the law, to put the policy into practice.Footnote ⁸⁴ Interest groups, bureaucracies, and Congress therefore work in tandem on what issues are considered important, which representatives take them on as they run for office, and also which administrative bodies create policies that implement laws once they are passed.

Blackman and Gardiner provide some insight on why the NRA has been so effective in its lobbying. They argue, for instance, that the NRA has a membership that is committed to the Association’s goals. This translates to an active membership that communicates with legislators about their opposition to restrictive gun laws. The NRA is also strategic in keeping its focus on issues that have broad consensus within its body and avoiding those that are divisive. It also seeks ways in which it can get support from law enforcement and commits to crime-control mechanisms whereby criminals are punished.Footnote ⁸⁵ The NRA’s effective lobbying has seen court decisions that continue to uphold the right to bear arms and acts such as the PLCAA, which restricts the extent to which firearm makers and sellers can be held liable. Any change in the laws would have to come from legislators who have a different view on the issue, and they would have to be elected to Congress in the first place. Bureaucratic changes would also be needed to amend existing policies. Mexico’s legal challenge is therefore one which many domestic actors have previously taken on but in which they have largely been unsuccessful.

Finding a balance between gun-ownership rights and the mitigation of gun violence and crimes has therefore been a delicate task. Issue networks, however, though more loosely connected than the iron triangles, have given rise to different types of advocacy groups acting within and across borders, campaigning for change. Moreover, Mexico recognises that there is a triad of issues, with gun violence, illicit drugs, and migration all intertwined. It therefore highlighted in its complaint that there is a ‘correlation between the increase in gun production in the U.S. and the percentage of homicides in Mexico committed with a gun’.Footnote ⁸⁶ Additionally, drug violence was also found to be perpetrated with trafficked weapons, causing many Mexicans to ‘seek security in the United States’.Footnote ⁸⁷ These migration outflows were also found to be ‘higher in border cities where homicide rates were highest and drug-related violence most prevalent’.Footnote ⁸⁸ While not all Mexican migrants are refugees, some indeed flee because of turmoil within their country, some of it due to gun and drug violence. This nexus between the issues suggests that declaring a war on guns is but one part of the triad that must be fixed in addition to the other two issues, since none of them exists in isolation.

Challenging global power hierarchies: South–South security cooperation between Mexico and CARICOM

Caribbean countries have decided to support Mexico in its lawsuit against American gun manufacturers by filing an amicus curiae. These countries, along with the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Human Security (SEHLAC),Footnote ⁸⁹ which works with NGOs and professionals on disarmament strategies in the LAC region and across the world, filed their arguments in the United States Court of Appeals on 21 March 2023. Similar to the arguments presented by Mexico, these nations and NGOs reasoned that a sizeable portion of the violence experienced in the region has been perpetrated by people using firearms that have their origin in the United States. Gun violence is therefore a public health crisis in the LAC region which, though comprising just 8 per cent of the world’s population, accounts for an astounding 37 per cent of global homicides. This, the amicus curiae brief finds, can be mainly attributed to the ‘ubiquity of illegal firearms’ that are trafficked from the United States.Footnote ⁹⁰ US gun industry practices therefore lead to irreparable and dire harm not just to Mexico, but also to LAC countries.Footnote ⁹¹ Examples from the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Belize, Costa Rica, Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago were included to show the deleterious effects of illegal American guns and violent crimes in these countries.Footnote ⁹² Hence, while Mexico was the only plaintiff, LAC nations used the amici curiae brief to demonstrate to the court that many other countries are harmed and continue to suffer harm from the US gun industry. This is despite their national and collaborative efforts to stem the flow of unlawful gun trafficking to their shores. They therefore appealed to the court to shift the balance of power and not allow ‘the gun manufacturers and distributers from a single nation [to continue to] hold hostage the law-abiding citizens of an entire region of the world’.Footnote ⁹³

Given the realities of US foreign policy and limited political leverage to influence Washington’s priorities in the region, the decision by Caribbean countries (initially just Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago)Footnote ⁹⁴ to join Mexico in its $10 billion lawsuit against eight gun manufacturers in the US is noteworthy. This is a strategic, South–South cooperation effort, which recognises the benefits of cooperating with a larger more significant country with shared ideas and beliefs and national security priorities. Mexico has a population of 126 million people, while the population of the entire CARICOM is approximately 18 million people. Mexico’s nominal GDP is $1.811 trillion, while nominal GDP for CARICOM is $145.3 billion. And while the land mass of CARICOM is 458,480 km², that of Mexico’s is 1,972,550 km². But similar to the Caribbean, a large number of guns trafficked into Mexico are from the US.

The current push by Mexico and its CARICOM allies to engage the US in a mutually beneficial security relationship is illustrative of how the issue of gun trafficking is framed as a shared threat and how combating gun trafficking is constructed as being mutually impactful and beneficial. By framing the issue as a collective security threat, Mexico and the Caribbean seek to engage the US in dialogue and a more assertive cooperation strategy to combat the trafficking of firearms which contribute to high rates of homicide, gun crimes, and gang violence.Footnote ⁹⁵ This is expected to decrease levels of gun violence in Mexico and the Caribbean.Footnote ⁹⁶ This in turn could benefit the US by reducing the flow of migrants seeking to escape violence in their home countries. Trinidadian prime minister Keith Rowley underscored the importance of the Caribbean’s participation in Mexico’s lawsuit in his remarks to Parliament: ‘our association with the Mexicans in pursuing this matter at this time has no cost attached to it … This is more of a diplomatic attachment where we’re supporting Mexico’s actions in the US courts … As a sovereign nation, we’re making our voices heard and we’re standing alongside another sovereign nation that’s having the same problem that we have.’Footnote ⁹⁷

Rowley’s emphasis on sovereignty mirrors the Caribbean’s struggle for autonomy in foreign policy. Mexico moves the Caribbean closer to real sovereignty and provides an ally with shared beliefs, interests, and ideas. For Mexico and the Caribbean, illegal guns are a symbol of gang warfare, power, and instability. The need for its control stems from the reality of high and increasing homicide rates. Philip J. Pierre, the prime minister of Saint Lucia, argued that it is urgent to ‘quickly explore new approaches to the problem of violent crime in our country. Our homicide rate jumped from a total of 30 in 2016, to 60 in 2017, 74 in 2021, 76 in 2022, 2023. The vast majority of these homicides have been firearm-related and have involved young people both as victims and perpetrators.’Footnote ⁹⁸

Andrew Holness, prime minister of Jamaica, echoed these concerns. ‘Our children are being killed; our young males are being killed with guns exchanged for drugs which head to North America … Our children are just as valuable as the children in North America.’Footnote ⁹⁹ This use of moral suasion is accompanied by Holness’s appeal to the US for ‘equal energy, effort and attention’ to be given to the illegal transfer of guns. Given the asymmetrical power relations between the US and CARICOM countries, moral suasion is a common tool of foreign policy. It is however not an effective strategy for achieving major shifts in security cooperation. Neither are strategies that focus solely on CARICOM, which lacks the capabilities to shape US security priorities within the region. As the hegemon, the US is able to dictate what the regional security priorities within CARICOM are. The ‘regional approach to prevent a dangerous substance from leaving our shores to get to the streets of a North America’, Jamaica’s prime minister Andrew Holness argued ‘is taken in the war on drugs; that’s what it is. ‘We spend effort, we spend time preventing an illegal substance getting to the shores of another country … A similar effort must be placed on ensuring that illegal guns don’t leave their shores to come to our countries.’Footnote ¹⁰⁰ This, however, cannot be achieved without more assertive (SSSC) models of security cooperation and coalitions with more powerful actors in the global South. CARICOM leaders are aware of this.

The speeches therefore reveal an understanding that the Mexico case puts CARICOM countries in a more advantageous position as they coalesce in litigation with Mexico around this issue area. They also highlight the differences in approaches to guns between CARICOM and the US. In some ways, this is an example of soft balancing, because ‘international institutions, economic statecraft and diplomatic arrangements’ are being used by Mexico to frustrate and undermine the United States. While this action does not ‘directly challenge [the] U.S’ military preponderance’ as hard balancing would,Footnote ¹⁰² it fits into CARICOM’s third model of cooperation around this issue area, where combative, assertive means are used because previous, pacifist attempts have not produced the desired outcomes.

By seeking recourse through American courts rather than international courts such as the International Court of Justice, or even through regional bodies such as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), and through a South–South coalition, a new precedent is being set for a more assertive model of security cooperation. Mexico’s lawsuit is still in its early stages, so we do not yet know how it may influence other states as they police the influx of illegal guns within their territories. The coalition of states and NGOs that has joined the lawsuit shows that the issue is being mutually constituted by different actors and is gaining traction across the LAC region and in South–South dialogue and practice. We also see that affected states have already been changing strategies by reframing their policies to focus on the ‘war on guns’. We see this, for example, in Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s speech at the 77^th United Nations General Assembly in September 2022. Here, Prime Minister Holness remarked:

The language used by Prime Minister Holness as well as the forum of choice are very strategic. This speech before the United Nations, where 193 countries are Members, is a way of saying to the world that this is how Jamaica and other Caribbean countries see the issue, and this is how they are promoting it.

We note here too that the early victory in the US Court of Appeals that Mexico properly brought the case has given legitimacy to the issue. An ultimate ruling in Mexico’s favour would help to solidify the framing of the issue as an international concern and promote even more lawsuits, judicial relief, and policy change. Mexico and Caribbean states would therefore help to push for the transcendence of power in the international system while encouraging new modes of cooperation. Even if Mexico does not prevail in the courts, the fact that the Court of Appeals has already held that this is a valid issue – morally, socially, and politically – the United States will have to pay attention to what happens. Other LAC countries can therefore use the outcome to push for changes in US policy in the region.

Making the ‘war on guns’ a success

In this article, we have examined how Mexico and the Caribbean have utilised South–South security cooperation to respond to a common set of security challenges relating to trafficking of firearms from the US to the LAC region. This response engages a strategy aimed at shifting from the United States’ focus on the war on drugs to a war on guns – the region’s priority. This signals a more assertive model of South–South security cooperation. While CARICOM lacks the capability to singlehandedly influence US priorities within the region, engaging in a South–South coalition with Mexico, a border state with more significant political and economic ties to the US, provides greater strategic leverage. Mexico’s historic tortious lawsuit against US gun manufacturers, and a CARICOM alliance, is not just symbolic but has important implications for countries also affected by the influx of guns from the United States, leading to spikes in violent crimes and homicides. Achieving not just US cooperation on gun trafficking but a war on guns, as CARICOM leaders have declared, could prove challenging. We therefore close with some thoughts on what would be required to realise a shift from the war on drugs to the war on guns.

Making a shift from a war on drugs to a war on guns may be made meaningful by transposing some, not all, of the elements from one to the other. This project would then involve several components. First, a shift in national and regional policy-directed priorities from the targeting of one set of illicit commodities to another; from a set produced in the South to a set produced in the main power centre of the North; one harming mainly the populations of the North to one harming the peoples of the South. The sites of supply and demand would be reversed, and supply policies may thus be appropriately transposed. Developing the institutional capabilities to control supply would be another element. A successful war on guns would also require tight border control (use of high integrity units); full scanning of goods; ‘crop eradication’, better regulated manufacture of guns; a ban on the sale of military-grade weapons to civilians; punitive measures against legitimate carriers that convey illegal weapons across national borders as well as monitoring and performance reviews. Success will also be dependent on managing risks through operational mechanisms that allow equal representation and similar levels of authority; effective monitoring and coordination; and investments in capacity development, to include technical transfers, over which CARICOM should have primary responsibility. Accepting this responsibility is a key component. Another important condition for success is building a long-term multiple-issue South–South security cooperation framework with Mexico and other countries in the global South.