Pictured at the formal handing-over ceremony for the Original Jurisdiction Case Digest for the CCJ are three of the four students, Trade Lab Directors – Drs. Jan Yves Remy and Ronnie Yearwood; CCJ President, The Hon. Mr. Justice Adrian Saunders (centre, top row) and three other judges – Justice Barrow, Justice Anderson and Justice Wit.

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was one of the 2021 beneficiaries of the third iteration of The University of the West Indies (UWI) TradeLab Clinic. For this initiative, third-year law students from the Cave Hill Campus who participated in the Clinic produced thirty-four (34) summaries of the decisions of the Court issued in the Original Jurisdiction between 2008 and 2020. These summaries were prepared by Ms. Chelsea Lawrence, Ms. Mya Brathwaite, Mr. James Morris and Ms. Régine Mondesir under the supervision of The UWI Trade Lab Directors, Dr. Jan Yves Remy and Dr. Ronnie Yearwood, and international trade law practitioner Mr. Claude Chase, who acted as a mentor. 

This collaboration was conceptualised by Dr. Jan Yves Remy and is intended to deepen the understanding of the Court’s role in interpreting and applying the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and deciding on issues regarding freedom of movement, trade, services, and money in the CARICOM region. 

In the formal handing-over ceremony of the Digest, The Honourable Mr. Justice Adrian Saunders, President of the CCJ, lamented the fact that regional citizens have not been making greater use of the rights they enjoy under the Treaty. As such, he commended the project, noting that “any initiative that highlights how the rights are to be enjoyed; that places a spotlight on the jurisprudence that has been developed in this area; and that makes this jurisprudence more easily accessible to the people and States of the Community, does a tremendous service to the region.” He further added that, “this digest is more than just concise summaries of the cases. It includes aids that give significant added value for researchers quite apart from providing a readily accessible snapshot of the decisions for the public at large.”

In her remarks ahead of the students’ presentation, Dr. Remy expressed the hope that the project “…will achieve, in some small measure, a greater implementation of this hope of Caribbean integration.” In a follow-up comment, she said, “I am pleased that the CCJ has found this work useful! We see our role as contributing concretely to the issues of the day and playing our part to come up with practical solutions for the region.”

Speaking to the practical utility of the case digest, Dr. Yearwood noted that, “…these types of summaries will allow practitioners and even [academicians] to be able to digest and reach into cases in a quicker way.”

The case digest is available here.