A Region among States: Law and Non-sovereignty in the Caribbean

A Region among States examines the possibility of creating a region in a geopolitical and ideological landscape dominated by the nation-state, based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at the Caribbean Court of Justice. Lee Cabatingan, who interned at the Court, provides insight into how the Court positions itself vis-à-vis the Caribbean region and the world and whether it can achieve popular success. She also explores the Court's project of extrajudicial region building, which borrows from the toolbox of the nation-state, as a potential alternative to the sovereign state.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 27 October 2023
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork at the Caribbean Court of Justice, A Region among States delves into the potential establishment of a geopolitical and ideological region amidst the dominance of the nation-state.

How is it that a significant portion of the independent, English-speaking Caribbean continues to submit to the judicial authority of their former colonizer through the British institution of the Privy Council? And what possibilities might the Caribbean Court of Justice, a judicial institution accountable to the region rather than any single nation, offer for unraveling sovereignty and regionhood, law and modernity, and postcolonial Caribbean identity?

Joining the Court as an intern, Lee Cabatingan closely observed its operations: she attended each court hearing, numerous staff meetings, served on committees, assisted with the organization of conferences, and helped prepare speeches and presentations for the judges. She now provides insight into not only how the Court positions itself vis-à-vis the Caribbean region and the world but also whether the Court, and perhaps the region itself as an overarching construct, might ever attain genuine popular success. In pursuit of an accepting and eager constituency, the Court is embarking on a project of extrajudicial region building that draws from the toolkit of the nation-state.

In each chapter, Cabatingan takes us into an analytical dimension familiar from studies of nation and state building—myth, territory, people, language, and brand—to help us understand not only the Court and its ambitions but also the regionalist project, plagued as it is with false starts and disappointments, as a potential alternative to the sovereign state.

Dimension: 216 x 140 x 13 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226825618