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.

Overview

Since the establishment of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) by the mainly English speaking parts of the Caribbean region CARICOM has become unofficially multilingual in practice with the addition of Dutch-speaking Suriname on 4 July 1995 and Haiti, where French and Haitian Creole are spoken, on 2 July 2002.

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.