The Unit­ed States re­mains a re­gion­al hege­mon in­tent on con­trol­ling Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. There is strength in num­bers, so coun­tries must en­sure mu­tu­al pro­tec­tion and ad­vance their com­mon in­ter­ests. The Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, in both its orig­i­nal and re­vised forms, em­bod­ies the spir­it of re­gion­al and func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

While there is no col­lec­tive de­fence oblig­a­tion, Cari­com mem­bers co­op­er­ate on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues through two in­sti­tu­tions: The Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem (RSS) and the Cari­com Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS). These or­gan­i­sa­tions fo­cus on counter-nar­cotics, mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter re­sponse and in­tel­li­gence shar­ing among mem­ber states. IM­PACS is based in T&T and is man­dat­ed to be the cen­tral body for co­or­di­nat­ing re­gion­al re­spons­es to crime and se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges.

Cari­com mem­ber states are not pre­vent­ed from join­ing or main­tain­ing oth­er se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments, such as the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive, which was launched on March 7th at a sum­mit in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da, at­tend­ed by a del­e­ga­tion led by the Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The func­tion­al arrange­ment is called the Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion, which is cen­tred on the com­mit­ment to use mil­i­tary ca­pa­bil­i­ties to dis­rupt and dis­man­tle car­tel or­gan­i­sa­tions and as­so­ci­at­ed ter­ror­ist net­works.

The pol­i­cy arrange­ments re­lat­ed to the March 7th procla­ma­tion re­main un­clear. Most state­ments or dis­cus­sions about the ini­tia­tive so far are spec­u­la­tive. Specif­i­cal­ly, they fo­cus on whether fi­nan­cial and po­lit­i­cal sup­port from the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion and T&T’s mem­ber­ship could pro­vide lever­age over Venezuela.

Al­though the agree­ment is re­cent, arrange­ments for in­for­ma­tion shar­ing and mil­i­tary co­or­di­na­tion have pre­sum­ably been dis­cussed or es­tab­lished. This rais­es ques­tions re­gard­ing the ini­tia­tive’s in­tend­ed pur­pose. The De­fence Force is not man­dat­ed to ad­dress drug traf­fick­ing or drug in­ter­dic­tion.

The De­fence Act tasks the Reg­i­ment and the Coast Guard with de­fend­ing the coun­try, sup­port­ing the civ­il au­thor­i­ties (law en­force­ment), and pro­vid­ing aid dur­ing emer­gen­cies. There have been joint pa­trols by po­lice and sol­diers, but sol­diers can on­ly ar­rest un­der the State of Emer­gency pow­ers. Out­side the pow­ers grant­ed un­der a state of emer­gency, de­fence force per­son­nel do not have the pow­ers an­tic­i­pat­ed un­der the Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion. The Coast Guard does have the pow­er to ar­rest and de­tain with­in the T&T mar­itime bound­aries.

Nar­cotics traf­fick­ing is a law en­force­ment is­sue and, there­fore, con­fined to the op­er­a­tions of the TTPS. The US has joined the is­sue of nar­co-traf­fick­ing and ter­ror­ism, thus cre­at­ing a new ter­mi­nol­o­gy which does not fit eas­i­ly in­to in­ter­na­tion­al in­stru­ments of law en­force­ment. This has wide im­pli­ca­tions for how a crime is de­fined and for the ac­tions tak­en to ad­dress en­force­ment. Com­bin­ing the is­sue of ter­ror­ism and nar­co traf­fick­ing forms the le­gal ba­sis for US mil­i­tary ac­tions against al­leged drug traf­fick­ers in Caribbean wa­ters. These ac­tions have been de­scribed as ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing, which is il­le­gal un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law.

To en­able the pow­ers im­plied in the agree­ment, the ex­ist­ing le­gal frame­work in T&T would have to be amend­ed. This al­so has im­pli­ca­tions for oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al treaties to which Trinidad and To­ba­go is a sig­na­to­ry, no­tably the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC), which is in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to T&T do­mes­tic law by the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court Act, Chap­ter 4:26. Al­so, what are the im­pli­ca­tions for the var­i­ous agen­cies formed pur­suant to the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas?

How does the GORTT in­tend to trans­late this Shield of Amer­i­c­as ini­tia­tive in­to the le­gal frame­work, and what are its im­pli­ca­tions for the rule of law in T&T?