Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:31:14.054Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Caribbean Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Get access

Extract

The Caribbean Organization, a new organization for economic and social cooperation in the Caribbean area, was created under an agreement signed by representatives of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and the Netherlands in Washington, D. C, on June 21, 1960. The new organization was to supercede the Caribbean Commission founded in 1946 by the same four signatory powers, which was in turn the successor to the wartime Anglo- American Caribbean Commission. The Caribbean Organization, reportedly set up as the result of the wishes of the people of the area and in light of their new constitutional relationships, was designed to remove the taint of colonialism attached to the paternal structure of the Caribbean Commission. Although the four signatories of the agreement were members of the Caribbean Commission, only France, representing the three French Overseas Departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique, was eligible for membership in the new organization. Membership in the Caribbean Organization was to be open to the following: the Netherlands Antilles, Surinam, the Bahamas, British Guiana, British Honduras, the British Virgin Islands, the British West Indies, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands of the United States, in addition to France. Any of the eligible prospective members could accede to membership in the organization by notifying the Secretary- General of the organization or the Secretary- General of the Caribbean Commission. The statute of the organization, annexed to the agreement for its establishment, included in the purposes of the organization social, cultural, and economic matters of common interest to the Caribbean area, particularly in the fields of agriculture, communications, education, fisheries, health, housing, industry, labor, music and the arts, social welfare, and trade.

Type
International Organizations: Summary of Activities: III. Political and Regional Organizations
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Agreement between the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the French Republic, of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and of the United States of America for the Establishment of the Caribbean Organization, with the annexed Statute of the Organization, Washington, 06 21, 1960Google Scholar. Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by Command of Her Majesty, September 1960. London, Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1960. Cmnd. 1144. See also The Times (London), 06 22, 1960Google Scholar.

2 For a summary of activities of the Caribbean Commission, see International Organization, Winter 1960 (Vol. 14, No. 1), p. 215216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.