Caribbean Community

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an organisation of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies. CARICOM's main purposes are to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy. Its major activities involve coordinating economic policies and development planning; devising and instituting special projects for the less-developed countries within its jurisdiction; operating as a regional single market for many of its members (Caricom Single Market); and handling regional trade disputes. The secretariat headquarters is based in Georgetown, Guyana.

Since the establishment of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) by the mainly English- (and English Creole-) speaking parts of the Caribbean region CARICOM has become multilingual in practice with the addition of Dutch speaking-Suriname on 4 July 1995 and French- (and French Creole-) speaking Haiti on 2 July 2002, and in 2003 the Caribbean Community agreed to make Spanish their second working language.

In 2001, the heads of government signed a Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas thus clearing the way for the transformation of the idea for a Common Market aspect of CARICOM into instead a Caribbean (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy. Part of the revised treaty among member states includes the establishment and implementation of the Caribbean Court of Justice.