Claude E S Hogan

hoganc@candw.ms

BIODATA

Claude Hogan is currently the Labour Commissioner for the Government of Montserrat. He also works as a trade economist specializing in international trade law (GATT/WTO) with Econ Trade Consultancy of London, England. He is a former member of the local parliament of Montserrat (Legislative Council/Assembly). He studied Mass Communications at the University of the West Indies and has a BA (Hons) in Political Science from Kean University, New Jersey and an MA in International Trade and Economic Law from the University of London.

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the Region’s interest in the protection and management of the Caribbean Sea. It outlines a course of action premised in international law and challenges the Caribbean to integrate its resources for the protection of the sea as a resource for regional development.

The member states of the CARICOM have a wide and strategic interest in declaring the Caribbean Sea a nuclear free zone and also preventing the cleaning by oil tankers of their bilges just outside the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of member states. The region is concerned both about the serious threat to the fragile ecology of the Caribbean Sea and the associated economic implications of a possible accident or even a perceived risk of nuclear radioactivity. This, as far as the CARICOM is concerned, is directly correlated to an accident of a ship transporting nuclear and other hazardous substances through the Caribbean Sea. The economic concerns are not only about the loss of seabed resources, but the fact that national economies are supported by millions of tourists who visit the region every year.

The underlying strategic importance of the Caribbean Sea includes the perception of mainly the CARICOM states that it is a relatively safe traffic area, which under proper management could yield economic dividends from the many tourist liners, tankers and other ships, which ply its waters. This latter view envisages a long-term building block approach requiring investment in the development of proper safety measures including enhanced port-to-port communications. This paper confines itself to outlining a legal blueprint for exploiting the Caribbean Sea as a natural resource rich area threatened by the shipping of nuclear and other hazardous substances through the Sea. It places Montserrat in the context of the discussions by highlighting the island as part of the physical geography of the Caribbean, notwithstanding its growing international legal connection with its mother country-England, as one of the last remaining colonies of the Caribbean.

© Claude Hogan, 2008. Page last revised November 3, 2008.

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