Area and Population of Member States

JOINT DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATION

To advance and protect their trade and economic development interests, the Governments of the OECS have established joint diplomatic missions to two international organisations that are of vital importance to their countries. By combining their human and technical resources for these unified missions, the Eastern Caribbean States can obtain more effective diplomatic representation at these organisations than if they each maintained individual missions. The first of the organisations is the European Union.

The European Union and some of its Member States are one of the major trading partners of the countries of the OECS. The European Union is also an important source of development assistance for the OECS. In February 1984, three Eastern Caribbean States – St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines – opened a joint diplomatic mission in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, where the headquarters of the European Union – the European Commission – is located. Known formally as the Embassies of the Eastern Caribbean States (ECS) to Belgium and Mission to the European Union, the Mission monitors relations between the European Union and the seven Protocol Member States of the OECS. It now also represents Antigua and Barbuda as well as Dominica.

International trade, that is trade between the countries of the world, is regulated by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The WTO sets the rules by which international trade is conducted and adjudicates in trade disputes between member countries.

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The seven Protocol Member States of the OECS coordinate their policies towards the WTO through a joint diplomatic mission in Geneva which was established in 2005. The members of staff of the Mission represent the Eastern Caribbean countries at meetings of the various committees of the WTO and monitor and report on developments at the organisation. The Mission is formally known as the Permanent Delegation of the OECS to the United Nations Offices and other International Organisations in Geneva. In addition to the WTO, the Mission therefore represents the seven Protocol Member States at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC).

Joint diplomatic representation had been one of the moving forces behind the formation of the OECS in 1981 and this had led to the establishment of joint OECS High Commissions in London and Ottawa. However, these arrangements did not endure. The joint High Commission in London, which represented St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was discontinued in 1998. Instead, the countries agreed to simply share premises for separate High Commissioners while the Joint High Commission in Ottawa was closed down in 2011 for financial reasons.

At the 66th Meeting of the OECS Authority in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in October 2018, the Organisation decided to return to its founding mission and agreed to reopen the Joint High Commission in Ottawa and to broaden its diplomatic horizons with strategic representation on the African continent. This is to take the form of non-resident Ambassadors to Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria and the establishment of permanent diplomatic missions in the Kingdom of Morocco, and Ethiopia at the seat of the African Union in Addis Ababa.