Author Interview: The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Constitutions

Richard Albert, Derek O’Brien & Se-Shauna Wheatle

Tell us a little bit about the book  

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Constitutions  offers a detailed and analytical view of the constitutions of the Caribbean region, examining the constitutional development of its diverse countries. The Handbook explains the features of the region’s constitutions and examines themes emerging from the Caribbean’s experience with constitutional interpretation and reform.  Divided into four parts and consisting of chapters written by 30 outstanding scholars, the Handbook begins with an overview of what is distinctive about the constitutions of the Caribbean and then presents each of the constitutions of the region in detail. The Handbook next addresses fundamental rights debates and developments in the region. It concludes with critical reflections on the challenges and prospects for the region. 

This book is the first of its kind. The volume presents a comprehensive review of the constitutional development of the entire Caribbean region, from the Bahamas in the north to Guyana and Suriname in South America, and all the islands in between. While written in English, the book embraces the linguistic and cultural diversity of the region, covering the Anglophone Caribbean as well as the Spanish-, French-, and Dutch-speaking Caribbean countries. 

What inspired you to take up this project?  

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro's Island People: The Caribbean and the World inspired the pan-Caribbean approach adopted in this book. The book is a dazzling combination of Caribbean history and culture which evokes the region’s fascinating diversity in its entirety, drawing connections which have previously been overlooked and creating a portrait of the region which is much greater than the sum of its parts. In its own modest way, this book seeks to highlight the diversity of the constitutional arrangements in place across the region and to show how these have been shaped by the region’s colonial history, while at the same time celebrating the region’s contribution to global constitutionalism. 

What challenges did you face in writing the book? 

There was one primary challenge for us in editing this book. We had to ensure that our account of the region’s many constitutions would be comprehensive and consistent, while still allowing our contributors space and freedom to write about the issues and concerns that most interested them about their respective jurisdictions.  

Looking back on the project, what stands out in your work as editors? 

The project began as it ended—the three of us as editors feeling awe and appreciation for the excellent and impactful scholarship of the contributors in this Handbook. We designed this Handbook by first building our wish-list of scholars whose research we admired and whom we hoped would join us in this adventure. We were thrilled to receive so many affirmative responses to our invitations to contribute to the Handbook. Years later, when we were reading the final proofs—having enjoyed collaborating with each of the authors on their outstanding individual chapters—we felt great joy. Soon the world would see what had begun as an idea and later matured into a product we could at last hold in our hands. 

What do you hope to see as the book's contribution to academic discourse and constitutional or public law more broadly? 

In his recent book on comparative constitutionalism, Ran Hirschl observes that “the constitutional experiences of entire regions—from the Nordic countries to sub-Saharan Africa to Central and South East Asia—remain largely uncharted terrain, understudied and generally overlooked.” 

Hirschl might also have added the Caribbean to his list. With few exceptions, the Caribbean has remained understudied and indeed underappreciated outside of the region itself. Not only on its own terms as a part of the larger world whose constitutional systems merit attention from scholars seeking to understand constitutionalism in all of its varieties but moreover for how the lived experiences of the countries in the region can help illuminate new and productive approaches to challenges facing constitutional democracies across the globe. This Handbook begins to fill the enormous void in our comparative knowledge of the constitutional systems of the world. 

What's next? 

The editors will continue to engage with comparative scholars—through conferences and social media—about the ideas and developments discussed in the book. We will also take opportunities to discuss the book’s findings and ideas with practitioners and judicial officers in the Caribbean, taking account of their responses and suggestions for updates in any future edition. And we look forward to opportunities to discuss this book, its findings, and its significance with colleagues around the world.