This study describes the options for introducing natural gas in the Caribbean region and includes an economic assessment of the cost of natural gas to each of the countries. The natural gas can provide a feasible alternative to reduce fuel oil dependency in the Caribbean and alleviate pressures that increase electricity prices by introducing an additional energy source. This paper analyzes the natural gas demand, costs, the possible competitive market alternatives for the successful development of natural gas import facilities in the region, and a brief analysis of the existing regulatory frameworks in the Caribbean for electricity and gas. The results find that a switch from fuel oil to natural gas could reduce the average cost of generation between 17 and 40%, increasing energy affordability for end users, and contributing to increase access to public services and reduce poverty.

This volume aims to illustrate the uniqueness of the economies of the countries and territories of the Caribbean as well as the similarities they share with other regions. While most countries in the region share many of the characteristics of middle-income countries, theirs is a matter of extremes. Their generally small size suggests a fragility not found elsewhere. While much of the world is beginning to feel some effects of climate change, the Caribbean is ground zero. These factors suggest a difficult road ahead, but the chapters presented in this volume aim to help to spur the search for creative solutions to the region’s problems. The chapters, written by expert contributors, examine the Caribbean economies from several perspectives. Many break new ground in questioning past policy mindsets, while developing new approaches to many of the traditional constraints limiting growth in the region. The volume is organized in four sections. Part I examines commonalities, including issues surrounding small economies, tourism, climate change and energy security. Part II looks at obstacles to sustained progress, for example debt, natural disasters and crime. In Part III chapters consider the specific role of external influences, including the USA and the European Union, the People's Republic of China, as well as regional co-operation. The volume concludes in Part IV with country case studies intended to provide a sense of the diversity that runs through the region.

The Caribbean faces numerous economic, social and environmental challenges, with current projections predicting the road ahead to be filled with low levels of growth, high debt and low resilience. In Achieving a Resilient Future for Small States: Caribbean 2050, the contributors set out a long-term, research-based strategy for avoiding these projections, recommending a number of policy interventions aimed at building the region’s resilience and development prospects. Written by influential analysts and researchers and drawing on a wide cross-section of regional stakeholders and thought leaders, the study contains an assessment of the main challenges and opportunities for the region, scenario modelling of where the region could be by 2050, and a broad vision for the region with sector specific goals of how to get there.

The Caribbean countries of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad-Tobago represent excellent examples of the increasingly important role played by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in less developed, micro-economies. The increased dependence of these countries on FDI, however, calls into question the attractiveness of the business environment of the region to the foreign investor. This volume examines both the investment behaviour and corporate strategies operating in these three countries, and assesses the factors which influence the motivations, location choices and market entry mode of multinationals making investments in the Caribbean.

This book provides the first in-depth and empirically grounded analysis of the foundations and evolution of the four Latin American and Caribbean regional economic courts: the Central American Court of Justice (CACJ), the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the Andean Tribunal of Justice (ATJ), and the Mercosur Permanent Review Court (MPRC). While these Courts were established to build common markets and to enforce trade liberalisation, they have often developed bodies of jurisprudence in domains not directly associated with regional economic integration. The CCJ has been most successful in the area of human and fundamental rights; the CACJ has addressed issues related to the enforcement of the rule of law in national legal arenas and longstanding border disputes between the countries of the region; and the ATJ is an island of effective adjudication on intellectual property issues. The particular trajectories of these four Courts suggest that there is no universal formula for success. Challenging the mainstream account, this book argues that the Courts' operational path is not necessarily a function of their formally delegated competences or the will of the Member States. Rather, local socio-political contextual factors play a far more decisive role in influencing the direction of regional economic courts during and after their establishment.

The book deals with the question whether the investment treaty law system could be harmonized with the climate change international legal framework and the climate interest that lies beyond. The answer to this research question is divided into three parts. The first examines the relevance of the climate change international legal framework in investment treaty disputes as a natural pre(logical)interpretative stage. The second focuses on the BIT’s content-interpretation, which is the orthodox approach to solve the fragmentation between the system of investment treaty law and the system of international climate change law. Finally, the third part tackles this fragmentation through a heterodox approach that is grounded in the direct application of climate change principles through law ascertainment. Apart from concluding that harmonization between investment treaty law and international climate change law is possible through the orthodox approach to the expropriation and the FET standards, as well as through the direct application of the climate change precautionary principle and the CBDRRC principle − heterodox approach, the book suggests that tribunals are expected soon to openly address climate change disputes in their rulings.