Are we ready for this?

Reform not self–governance

A former representative to the United Nations Special Committee of 24 on Decolonisation said last week that recent successful constitutional modernisation efforts in some British Overseas Territories may not pass muster with the UN.
The UN is seeking full self–governance for 16 territories world–wide, which are still being administered by foreign powers. Ten of those 16 are United Kingdom territories, including the Cayman Islands.
Former US Virgin Islands representative to the UN committee, Carlyle Corbin, told a group of residents in West Bay last week that the constitutional modernisation process set forth in the UK’s 1999 white paper, the Partnership for Progress and Prosperity was not meant to be a process of self–determination.
“It was meant as an internal modification of the status of the constitution within (the territories’) existing relationship,” Mr. Corbin told the audience.
One of the strongest political recommendations from the UN in the last decade has been for nations with remaining dependent territories to proceed with, and if possible complete, the decolonisation process.
That can happen in one of three ways: The territory can declare its complete independence from the administering power; the territory can become part of the administering power; or an agreement can be made that allows the territory and its administering nation to freely associate.
Any of those three options must be agreed to by representatives for both the territories and their administering country.
Mr. Corbin noted both the British Virgin Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands have recently modified their constitutions to include more internal self–governing powers. However, he said last week that he believes those constitutional changes did not meet requirements for full–self governance as defined by international guidelines.
“The United Kingdom’s authority as exercised through the governor….his reserve powers, all of this will remain in place (in the BVI and Turks and Caicos),” Mr. Corbin said. “Additionally, the United Kingdom’s powers to issue orders in council also remain in place.”
“The new constitutions of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the British Virgin Islands, while providing for more delegated authority, have not fundamentally changed the political relationship between the territories and the administering power,” Mr. Corbin added.
Mr. Corbin’s opinion may or may not be agreed with by the UN Committee on Decolonisation, which is expected to review the constitutional arrangements and make a decision on whether the BVI and Turks and Caicos can be removed from the committee’s list of territories.
However, it does raise the spectre of these overseas territories, and others, having to go through the constitutional review process again to achieve UN standards.
Cayman Islands Leader of Government Business Kurt Tibbetts said during a constitutional review meeting in West Bay Thursday that while his government wants to reduce the UK’s lawmaking power within the territory, he doubted whether UK negotiators would agree to give that power up entirely ––– particularly the governor’s reserve powers.
The ruling government’s proposal for constitutional reform also states that the Cayman Islands does not seek to fundamentally change its current relationship with the UK, and wishes to remain an overseas territory at this time.
Mr. Tibbetts has often said that Cayman will not seek “anything like independence” from the UK during this constitutional negotiation.