What OECS is and how it works

A treaty signed by places that were not all states

The Treaty of Basseterre was signed on 18 June 1981 at Basseterre in Saint Kitts and Nevis, by representatives of Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Not every signature that day belonged to a sovereign state. Montserrat was a British colony and is now a British Overseas Territory. Antigua and Barbuda dates its independence to 1 November 1981, four months after the signing. Saint Kitts and Nevis, which hosted it, adopted the flag it still flies on 19 September 1983.

The treaty says as much in its own text. Article 2(3) provides that although a territory listed in the first paragraph is not a sovereign independent State, the heads of government may by unanimous decision admit it as a full member. Article 2(4) opens the same door to any other state or territory in the Caribbean region, as a full or an associate member, on the same unanimous vote. Article 21 made entry into force turn on the second instrument of ratification received by the Government of Saint Lucia from an independent member state, which is the drafting conceding that some of the signatories could not ratify in their own name.

What was folded into it

Two bodies left over from the West Indies Federation went into the organisation rather than being wound up. The West Indies Associated States Council of Ministers, with a secretariat in Saint Lucia, administered common services among the associated territories, and that secretariat became the central secretariat of the OECS. The East Caribbean Common Market, established by an agreement of 11 June 1968 and run from Antigua, became the economic affairs secretariat. Saint Kitts and Nevis dates its statehood to 27 February 1967 and Saint Lucia to 1 March 1967, the associated statehood that preceded independence in each case.

A bank, a court, a commission

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank was commissioned on 1 October 1983 under an agreement signed on 5 July 1983, taking over from a currency authority that had run since 1965, and it issues the East Caribbean dollar from Basseterre. The rate has held at EC$2.70 to the United States dollar since July 1976. The bank's participating governments are not the same list as the one on this page: Anguilla is among them and holds associate membership of the organisation, while the British Virgin Islands belongs to the organisation and uses the United States dollar.

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court was created in 1967 as the West Indies Associated States Supreme Court, and it sits at Castries in Saint Lucia. High court judges are resident in the jurisdictions and the Court of Appeal travels to them. Its jurisdiction runs to nine places, the independent members of the organisation together with Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat, which is the same mismatch seen from the other side.

The OECS Commission works from Morne Fortune in Castries. Above it sits the Authority, composed of the heads of government, which Article 6 makes the supreme policy-making institution and which decides by the affirmative vote of every member present and voting. Article 8 set up a Defence and Security Committee of ministers designated by those heads of government, reporting to the Authority and advising on external defence and on collective security against aggression, with mercenary activity named among the threats. It decides by unanimity as well.

The economic union, and the stamp

The Revised Treaty of Basseterre was signed on 18 June 2010, at the fifty-first meeting of the Authority in Saint Lucia and on the anniversary of the original, and it entered into force on 21 January 2011. In place of a treaty of co-operation it puts an economic union: a single financial and economic space, with goods, capital and people moving freely among the protocol members.

The movement of people is the part a traveller meets at a desk. A citizen of a protocol member may arrive on a government-issued photographic document, a driving licence, a national identity card or a voter card, in place of a passport, and is given an indefinite stay stamp on entry, which carries the right to live, work, set up a business or provide a service without further permission. Montserrat is listed by the organisation among the protocol members the regime applies to, which is the practical form of the point Article 2(3) made in 1981.

The outer ring

Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin are associate members, admitted under Article 2(4) and treated as full members for many of the organisation's activities. Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin are French and use the euro, so the outer ring of an eastern Caribbean organisation reaches into a European currency. The organisation's own membership page carries no accession date for any of them, and none is supplied here.

The smaller ring inside a larger one

Every member on this page also belongs to the Caribbean Community, and the records carry the dates: Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on 1 May 1974, Antigua and Barbuda on 4 July 1974, Saint Kitts and Nevis on 26 July 1974. The two do not do the same work. CARICOM runs a market that reaches from Belize to Suriname. This runs a currency issued by one bank, a court sitting at Castries, and a stamp in a passport.